Platte Woods, MO

Platte Woods is a small city in southern Platte County that began as an intentionally planned residential community on former farm and estate land. The area sat just south of the old Military Road—today's Barry Road—and Ernest “Ernie” Thompson started shaping it in the 1930s as the “Garden Spot of Platte County,” with large lots and individually designed homes. The Platte Woods Improvement Association formed in 1938; the village incorporated in 1946 and became a fourth-class city in 1954. Missouri 9 forms the western edge, and the old coach road now known as 72nd Street marks the southern side.

Alongside the wooded residential pattern, the city has its own practical business strip: gasoline stations, restaurants, automotive repair, and laundry facilities sit among the roughly forty businesses listed by the city. Utilities arrived in stages—gas in 1951, water lines in 1952, sewers in 1975—and City Hall opened in 1988. The local scoop is a postwar Kansas City suburb whose roads, utilities, and large-lot homes were built piece by piece around the old Military Road.