William Strang and the line that built a city

Most Kansas suburbs grew around highways. Overland Park grew around a railroad — and that difference still shows in the street grid.

In 1905, William B. Strang Jr. purchased 600 acres and platted a "park-like" community: wide boulevards, reserved green space, paved streets, modern utilities. To reach it, he built his own electric interurban — the Missouri & Kansas Interurban, soon known as the Strang Line — and marketed the town to Kansas City commuters who wanted space without giving up the rail connection downtown.

The Strang Line opened in 1906. It ran until 1940, but its route shaped where the city densified. Strang set aside land for public parks from the beginning — not as an afterthought when developers ran out of building lots.

Strang died in 1921 at age 63. The community he planned incorporated as a city in 1960 with roughly 28,000 residents. The 2020 Census put it at 197,238 — the second-largest city in Kansas.

What to see today: The Johnson County Museum at the Arts & Heritage Center preserves county history including the 1950s All-Electric House. The Overland Park Arboretum runs a Train Garden with model railways winding through its landscaped scenes. Lanesfield School near Edgerton — an 1869 one-room limestone schoolhouse — predates Strang but puts the settlement timeline in context.

For primary sources, Kansas Memory and Kansapedia hold photographs, maps, and documents from the Kansas Historical Society.

The full history timeline on this site covers the major milestones. Strang's story is the through-line: planned green space, rail connectivity, and a city that was designed before it was inevitable.