Feature 341: 420 North Pleasant Street (in 2011)

Classification: Contributing.
Historic Name: Johnson House.
Architectural Style: Italianate.
Construction Date: ca. 1888.
Period 1 of Harry S Truman’s Life: The Period of Pre-Significance, before 1890.
Tax Identification: 26-220-19-02.
Legal Description: Pleasant Place, lot 14.
Description: Contributing two-story wood-frame dwelling; irregular in shape; hipped roof with composition shingles; synthetic clapboard siding; one-over-one double-hung sash synthetic windows; one-story porch with square wood posts on facade; brick foundation. Level lot with lawn; shrubbery along foundation; large shade tree in front yard.
• Alterations: Siding added, windows added.
• A noncontributing one-story wood-frame garage stands to the rear along the alley [Feature 342].
History/Significance: The first owner(s) of this Italianate house are not known. In the late 1800s, W.H. and Mary Johnson lived at 420 North Pleasant Street. Johnson began his career as an educator teaching in Hickman Mills. Later, while teaching at Oak Grove, he met and married Mary Proctor in 1896. In 1898, he became superintendent of Jackson County schools. The Johnsons moved to Independence that year and probably took up residence at 420 North Pleasant Street soon after arriving. Johnson initiated the first consolidation of rural school districts in Missouri in Hickman Mills in the early 1900s. He served as Jackson County school superintendent from 1898 to 1908. Between 1908 and 1938, Johnson was an administrator in the Kansas City school system, retiring in 1938. By 1911, Jennie Leftwick, widow of John Leftwick, a painter, and Walter Schulenburg, a postal letter carrier, lived at 420 North Pleasant. The Leftwick family, including Samuel, an engineer for the Independence Water Works Company, continued to reside at 420 North Pleasant Street at least until the mid-1910s.