75 years ago on this day (1949) was the formal opening of Lincoln Heights Village shopping center at Douglas & Oliver, near the College Hill neighborhood in the east part of Wichita.
It was hailed as the first shopping center in Wichita; the “new and modern type center” opened with 14 stores, and a paved parking lot for 150 cars.
In 1927 Walter Morris and Son bought the 80 acres constituting Lincoln Heights from the millionaire St. Louis investment family, the Knights, for $110,000. (The Knights are said to have financed the historic Charles Lindbergh trans-Atlantic flight -- perhaps partly with this money from Wichita.)
The 80 acres got the name from Walter Morris, an ardent disciple of Abraham Lincoln. The area is from Douglas to Kellogg, between Crestway & Oliver; it was named the Lincoln Heights addition.
Walter Morris came to Wichita from Washington Court House, Ohio, in the 1880s, arriving during the real estate “boom”, and staying through the subsequent "bust".