H. Roe Bartle

Mayor, desegregation, Kansas City Chiefs, Lamar Hunt, “The Chief”

 
 
 

 

A jack-of-all-trades with a personality and presence about as big as his namesake convention center, Harold Roe Bartle was a firecracker Kanas City transplant whose mayoral term is not even his best-remembered accomplishment.  His Southern preacher father had moved the family to the area in 1923, though by the time a young H. Roe Bartle joined them he had already begun in Kentucky his lifelong careers as a lawyer and a Boy Scout troop leader.  Bartle was a member on upwards of fifty boards of directors, and a frequent and celebrated public speaker, so despite his lack of political experience he was a natural fit for Mayor of Kansas City.  Serving from 1955 to 1963, Mayor Bartle was instrumental in the city’s desegregation.  He is also credited for bringing Lamar Hunt and his new football team to Kansas City.  They still share his legacy, as the team was originally named in honor of “the Chief” H. Roe Bartle.