By 1940, Kansas City authorities had finally deposed “Boss Tom” Pendergast. In the spring of that year, teams of laborers from the Works Progress Administration began a months-long effort to produce Jackson County’s first systematic property tax assessment.

Part of their job was to photograph every taxable structure in the county. Many of those photos survive in the Missouri Valley Special Collections.

Local historian John Simonson traces the project and presents fascinating examples from this remarkable photographic record from 1940.