Wood’s Building (Cosby Hotel)

Milwaukee Delicatessen Co. restaurant, Sasha’ Baking Co., beer & wine

 

 

 

Mr. James W. Wood sought an architect (unknown) to erect his namesake building – speculatively for investment purposes. It became office space for many accomplished Kansas City doctors, including a rarity in Dr. Martha Dibble, one of the few female physicians in a male dominated industry. The lady doctor was a pioneer, and Grinnell College’s Dibble Hall is a monument to Dibble and husband, Leroy. Martha also cofounded and drew up the constitution for the Kansas City Athenaeum, now the city’s oldest running women’s club.

 

The Wood’s building was also the second home of local prominent printing business, the Lane Blueprint Company.

 

In the 1880s, entrepreneur Joseph Cosby relocated from his native Kentucky to Kansas City, acquired both the Wood’s Building and its next-door neighbor, the Wright House Hotel, merging them into one as the new Hotel Cosby in 1889.  The hotel almost saw the wrecking ball until a local trio restored it in 2014.  Milwaukee Delicatessen Co., named after a restaurant and bar original to the building in 1908, occupies the ground floor; alongside Sasha’s Baking Co., serving sweets and wine and beer.