KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The doctor who oversaw the” golden age” of Kansas City, Missouri, as its mayor and transformed the city’s skyline and infrastructure has died.
Former Kansas City, Missouri, Mayor Charles Wheeler — whose name adorns the downtown airport — died Tuesday night in Overland Park.
Current KCMO Mayor Quinton Lucas' office confirmed Wheeler's passing and issued a statement on his death:
I spoke this morning with the family of Charles B. Wheeler, M.D., our former mayor and one of the finest people ever to serve our community, and learned of Mayor Wheeler’s passing at the age of 96.
He started his long career in service as a member of the United States Navy and later as a public servant for many years in Kansas City. Mayor Wheeler leaves behind a legacy which will be felt for generations to come, having led Kansas City through the opening of the Kansas City International Airport, Bartle Hall, and Kemper Arena, launching Kansas City into the convention town we know it to be today, and positively raising our community’s national and international profile. He also helped lead Kansas City through its recovery following the devastating floods of 1977.
Mayor Wheeler was a statesman all Kansas Citians, Missourians, and Americans could be proud of, who in addition to his service in elective office bravely served our country in the U.S. Navy as a flight surgeon before returning to school to earn his juris doctorate. Since becoming mayor, I have been proud to call him a personal friend and a mentor. He will be missed.
Mayor Wheeler leaves behind his daughter Marion and his daughter Nina, whom he was able to spend two beautiful weeks with prior to his passing, and is preceded in death by his sons Gordon, Mark, and Graham, and Kansas City’s former First Lady, his beloved wife Marjorie.
According to The Associated Press, Wheeler died Tuesday night, said Lucas' chief-of-staff, Morgan Said, who spoke to his daughter and grandson. She said they have asked Lucas to speak at the funeral.
Said had no details about how or where he died, but KCUR, which first reported Wheeler's death, reported that he died at a nursing home in Overland Park, Kansas.
“What I admired most was that he was one of those mayors who got things done,” former Kansas City Mayor Sly James said of Wheeler. “I tried to emulate that.”
Wheeler was one of the candidates vying for mayor in 2011, a race that James eventually won en route to his first of two terms in office.
James said he remembered Wheeler as a teller of stories and him holding court with patrons at the Westport Flea Market.
James said that, even if people weren’t alive during Wheeler’s term or residents of Kansas City at the time, they probably use public amenities that came online during Wheeler’s term.
Wheeler, who served as KCMO’s mayor from 1971 to 1979, was a doctor by trade prior to entering public service. He was 96 years old.
On Wheeler’s watch, KCMO built Kemper Arena and the Bartle Hall Convention Center, which helped the city attract the 1976 Republican National Convention.
Kansas City International Airport also opened during Wheeler’s tenure as mayor along with many other landmarks — including the Truman Sports Complex, which is home to the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals, along with Truman Medical Center, Worlds of Fun and Crown Center.
Wheeler also helped convince state officials to create the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s School of Medicine.
Many consider the development boom of the 1970s to be KCMO’s golden age, according to a 2002 profile in Ingram's Magazine.
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II, who served as KCMO's mayor from 1991 to 1999 before running for Congress, remembered Wheeler as "the most visionary" and "very likely ... the smartest Mayor in our city's history" in a statement:
Charlie Wheeler was my dear friend, an important mentor, and the most visionary Mayor in the history of our great city. During my eight years as Mayor, I was blessed to have had the likes of Charlie Wheeler, Ike Davis, and Dick Berkley as guides through the best and worst of times — and our city was better off for it.
Having both a J.D. and an M.D., Charlie very likely was the smartest Mayor in our city’s history. And when you mix that with his daring, you get a powerful combination of genius with imagination. That was Charlie Wheeler. I will miss my friend, and the city will miss his ingenuity. We all owe him heartfelt gratitude for his public service, and I pray that his memory will be a blessing for all that had the privilege to know him.
“What I admired most was that he was one of those mayors who got things done,” former Kansas City Mayor Sly James said of Wheeler. “I tried to emulate that.”
Wheeler was one of the candidates vying for mayor in 2011, a race that James eventually won en-route to his first of two terms in office.
James said he remembered Wheeler as a teller of stories and him holding court with patrons at the Westport Flea Market.
James said that even if people weren’t alive during Wheeler’s term or residents of Kansas City at the time, they probably use public amenities that came online during Wheeler’s time in office.
Born on Aug. 10, 1926, Wheeler graduated from Westport High School in 1942. He earned a bachelor’s of arts from the University of Louisville and graduated from the University of Kansas Medical School in 1950.
He also served in the U.S. Navy in the late 1940s and joined the U.S. Air Force in 1950, serving as captain and flight surgeon for the original Thunderbirds aerial acrobatic team.
After working at several Kansas City-area hospitals and founding Wheeler Medical Laboratories, he was elected as the Jackson County coroner in 1965.
Wheeler was elected as a judge in 1967 before running for and winning the 1971 mayoral race.
After being reelected in 1975, he lost a bid for a third term in 1979 and lost a bid in 1983 to regain the office.
The downtown airport was renamed the Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport in 2002.
Wheeler also served as a state senator for Missouri’s 10th District from 2003 to 2007, and also had unsuccessful runs in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in 1976 and for KCMO mayor again in 2011.
Jolie Justus, who succeeded Wheeler in the Missouri Senate when he didn't seek re-election, recalled that Wheeler was adamant that it was crucial to be the smartest person in the room. “And he, I think, always was the smartest person in the room," she said.
He also vied for Jackson County Executive in 2006, state treasurer in 2008 and governor in 2016.
