Jackson County (Mo.)
Historical Society
Historical
Perspective
by David W.
Jackson
Hereford Boulevard had cattle
kingdom
Lee’s Summit Road (once affectionately
known as “Hereford Boulevard”) south of 40 Highway affords travelers with
winding beautifully-rounded knolls crested with giant trees. Grace Farrington
Gray writing for “The Farmer’s Wife” magazine in 1929 highlighted a “dream in
cream and terra cotta red” on the west side of the road just north of Woods
Chapel Road...historic Cedar Croft
set back behind stone gate posts.
When, during World War I, there was a
great demand for more beef breeding cattle, one of the country’s greatest
producers was here in Jackson County—Judge Walter Lee and Verda
Florence (Thrailkill) Yost. Married in April 1896
in Holt Co., Mo, they came to Kansas City in 1898. Yost, employed by the
Byers Brothers Livestock Commission Company, was one of the founders and
early presidents of the American Royal, his wife’s inaugural ball gown having
been donated to the American Royal Museum.
The Yosts lived
in town at 3207 Benton Boulevard in Kansas City as late as 1910, but their
hearts yearned to return to the picture of the farm of their childhood days. Cedar Croft was born 1911, and by 1919
the Yosts relocated to their country estate after
spending two years building the fine home you see today.
Mrs. Yost’s home (and her homemaking
skills) “put the glow into glorious,” according to Gray, who provided a
detailed tour of the country home and farm. The once 640-tract had a group of
great Jersey dairy barns; two 165-ton silos; tenant houses…and the Yost
home…the lawn of which was thickly planted with cedars, maples and ornamental
shrubbery with clumps of peonies and beds of iris.
For the first quarter of the 20th
century, the Yost name was coupled with the social elite of the beef cattle
cult, and the tiers of prize ribbons at their farm home re-echoed the praises
of Yost Herefords from prize rings all over the country. In 1926, the Yost
herd consisted of 175 head at its height, with 60 breeding cows. It may sound
strange to us “city slickers” of today, but these were the kings and queens
of American beef cattle show rings…Hereford aristocrats if you will.
Yost also went into partnership with
G. H. Olson, a Jackson County pioneer dairyman since 1899. Olson and Yost
Dairy produced under the label, “Cedarcroft Jersey Farm.” Three hundred acres
of Yost’s blue grass were set aside for cattle grazing for at least seven
months of the year; the remainder of the tract was devoted to the production
of hay and grain crops. In 1926, Cedarcroft was one of few dairies in the
county using milking machines. They produced 150 gallons of Jersey milk daily
with their initial herd of 75 young Jersey cows (half of which were
purebred).
The stock market crash of 1929 and the
Great Depression affected Yost’s Cedar
Croft operations. Though they recovered during the early years of World
War II, their property dwindled to 160 acres.
Besides the legacy of Cedar Croft, perhaps Mr. and Mrs.
Yost’s finest tribute is that they gave home and education to young people
who otherwise may not have had either. Though they never had children of their
own, they helped several children through school, taking all of them into
their home as members of the family.
One of those, Rose Mae Carroll, lived
with the Yosts for 16 years between the age of 14 in 1926 to 1942 when she married Robert Henry
Cook. Their son was named Walter Lee Cook, of Harrisonville, is named after
Mr. Yost. Rose taught at the Oakland School No. 61 from 1932 to 1946 when the
country school was closed and consolidated into the Lee’ Summit School
District. Oakland School house, which still
stands today at the corner of 75th Street and Lee’s Summit
Road, was built in 1884 on 1 acre donated by John W. Kerr in 1883.
Yost was later associated as a banker
with the Farmers and Merchant’s Bank on
Independence Square. And he was elected as the Eastern District Judge on the
Jackson County Court (akin to today’s County Legislature) in 1943 and 1945.
Mrs. Yost died on January 14, 1945; Mr. Yost on December 11, 1948. They are
buried in Mount Moriah Cemetery.
Drew Hood has remodeled Yost’s Cedar Croft; the gem of the
neighborhood may still be available to the next lucky caretaker.
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