Truman's Courthouse to the Garment District, Narrated as You Walk
A GPS-triggered audio walk through downtown Kansas City's civic blocks, old theater row and Garment District, at your own pace.
This walk runs on your phone. After booking, you install the Action Tour Guide app, unlock the Kansas City tour with the password Action Tour Guide sends by email and text, and the audio plays on its own as GPS places you at each stop. The route covers over 1.7 miles and more than 33 audio stories, and the operator puts the walk at about one to two hours. No guide meets you. The pace, the coffee breaks and any detour are yours to set.
Booking unlocks the tour inside that separate app. Access never expires, and the operator says the booked date does not have to be the day you walk. A full refund needs a cancellation at least 24 hours before the booked date and time.
Kansas City Self-Guided Walking Audio TourA self-guided GPS audio walk through downtown Kansas City: over 1.7 miles, more than 33 stories, lifetime access.www.viator.comA Racketeer, a Future President and Two Art Deco Towers
The listing sets the start at 601 East 12th Street, the Richard Bolling Federal Building, which sits across the 12th and Locust intersection from City Hall. The Jackson County Courthouse went up nearby in 1934, designed by Wight and Wight, and Harry Truman, then presiding judge of the county court, wanted it modeled on the courthouse in Shreveport, Louisiana. The same firm designed City Hall, finished in 1937 with concrete supplied by political boss Tom Pendergast. The listing's own teaser is a racketeer in league with a US president, and the stops keep circling back to Pendergast and Truman. The script says Truman once owned a men's clothing shop inside the Glennon Hotel, on a corner the route passes.
Three Theaters on 12th Street, and the One Still Standing
In the early 1900s, the script says, a walk down 12th Street passed three theaters: movies at the Newman, jazz at the Gayety and stage plays at the Folly. Only the Folly is still standing. It opened in 1900 as the Standard Theatre, designed by Kansas City architect Louis S. Curtiss, and the script names Shirley Booth, Humphrey Bogart and the Marx Brothers among the performers who played it. The Gayety stop sits at Barney Allis Plaza. When Allis took over the Gayety to expand his hotel, the script says, Kansas City lost one of its premier jazz clubs.
Quality Hill, the Garment District and Booth No. 4
Beyond the theater row the stories move into Quality Hill and the old Garment District. At a bar James Fitzpatrick opened in 1911, the script brings Pendergast back as Fitzpatrick's most important business ally. The Garment District stop covers the 1930s, when, as the script tells it, nearly a quarter of the clothing made in the United States came from Kansas City. At the Savoy, the script says, Truman took Booth No. 4 for lunch and ordered his steak well done. The route also takes in the brownstone New England Building, which the script calls the city's tallest building in its day, the New York Life Building, and the Muse of the Missouri, a statue and fountain the script says banker James Kemper commissioned in 1962 for a son killed in World War II.
Set Up the App While You Still Have Wi-Fi
Setup is the step to finish at home. The operator's instructions run four steps: download the Action Tour Guide app, sign in with your email, enter the password from the instructions email, then download the tour. The QR code on the voucher is not a ticket, and the operator asks you to finish setup before you reach the start, while you still have Wi-Fi or a mobile signal. After that the tour runs offline on GPS, on an iPhone with iOS 15 or later, Android 9 or later, or a GPS-enabled iPad or tablet with cellular. The same password works on one device for each traveler on the booking. You can begin at 601 East 12th Street or join anywhere along the route the app shows. One traveler wrote in August 2025 that construction had left some of the information out of date; the operator replied that it would pass that along to its team.
Entrance fees, parking and food are extra. The walk finishes at Ilus W. Davis Park, 1000 Locust Street, where the final story turns to Mayor Ilus Davis and the days after Martin Luther King Jr.'s murder in April 1968.