From Streetcar Suburbs to a Golf Course City: How Johnson County's Small Cities Got Their Housing Stock

Johnson County's smaller cities didn't all grow the same way, and the differences show up in their housing stock today. Merriam started in 1864 as Campbellton and got its current name from a railroad executive when the Kansas City, Fort Scott and Gulf line arrived in 1870 — homes near its historic Merriam Park and Antioch Park skew older than the county average. Mission began life as a 245-lot subdivision called Mission Hill Acres in 1926, so a real share of its housing predates World War II. Roeland Park, at just 1.6 square miles, grew out of a 1905 interurban streetcar suburb along the Strang Line. Fairway took shape in 1938 around its golf courses, partly on the former grounds of the 1839 Shawnee Methodist Mission. The common thread: all four have meaningfully older housing stock than the newer subdivisions further out, which is exactly why refinishing original hardwood comes up so often on our estimates in these four cities specifically.