Kenneth Spencer Research Library Archival Collections

The Kansas City, Kaw Valley & Western Railway was an interurban rail line with electric car service between downtown Kansas City, Missouri and Lawrence, Kansas. The collection contains scattered records of the railway's operation, including correspondence, operational cost data, freight charge receipts, accident reports for the line during its most prosperous years, maps and architectural drawings, and an honor's thesis by John W. Florin on the history of the railway line.

This collection contains some copied photographs from Nancy Porter's family, as well as photographs from the family of A. R. Maxwell, a Wells Fargo agent who resided in Lawrence, Kansas. The first 12 photographs in the collection are later copy prints from the Porter family photographs; the rest of the collection are contemporary prints from the Maxwell family. Many of these are badly faded; most also have handwritten notes on them.