The Kansas City, Kansas Food Terminal, popularly known as the Public Levee, was a Depression-era project initially conceived by banker Willard Breidenthal and attorney Guy Stanley, the principal local developer of the Fairfax Industrial District. They saw the advantage of using WPA and PWA funds to construct a regional food terminal on the unused public levee property at the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers, land that had first been dedicated for public use at the time of the original platting of the City of Wyandott in 1857. Their plan called for the Union Pacific Railroad to bring fruit and vegetables from the Northwest, and the Santa Fe and Rock Island to bring produce from the Southwest and California. It called for barges to haul tropical fruit up the river from New Orleans to the food terminal for storage, packaging, sale and distribution to the large buyers for the chain stores and eastern markets.

Design for the project began in 1937, with construction continuing from 1938 through 1940. The architects for this huge undertaking were Alonzo H. Gentry, Voskarnp & Neville of Kansas City, Missouri, with Joseph W. Radotinsky of Kansas City, Kansas, as associate architect and Walter F. Schulz of Memphis, Tennessee, as coordinating engineer. A young architect from Radotinsky's office named Cecil E. Cooper also participated in at least one phase of the project. Because of its size, the project was broken down into nine separate components, all in a late Art Deco or Streamlined Moderne style.

(History of the Kansas Food Terminal was found at http://www.kscold.com/history.htm)