What Exactly is Shawnee-Mission?

GuyInLenexa · Post by **GuyInLenexa** » Tue Mar 02, 2004 6:17 pm

You would think that I should know this, being it is the address on most of my mail I receive. I know that Shawnee-Mission represents several municipalities in JOCO, I am not really certain which ones.
I am assuming Lenexa (of course), Shawnee, Mission (duh!), Roeland Park, Merriam, and OPK. Does it include Olathe and Leawood????
How did the name/term â€œShawnee-Missionâ€

KCPowercat · Post by **KCPowercat** » Tue Mar 02, 2004 6:21 pm

I don't think ANYBODY knows....all I know is it's a mailing address...when i lived in Lenexa and would call some businesses, give them my zip, they would say "Shawnee Mission" and I was like "no" but it's what they had in the computer.

I think all of JoCo should just be renamed into one big city called "Shawnee Mission".....I think that would help JoCo push it's weight even more so in Topeka and in the metro.

I remember a news story on this years ago but don't remember what they concluded.

Missionite · Post by **Missionite** » Tue Mar 02, 2004 7:54 pm

Well...it's actually kind of simple. It all stems out from the Shawnee Indian Mission at 53rd and Mission Rd. Settlers would come to visit the Shawnee Mission and, at the time, much of the area was still very rural. So, the name "Shawnee Mission" was attached to the area generally referred to as Mission, Roeland Park, Fairway, Westwood, Shawnee, Merriam, and parts of Prairie Village and Overland Park. That name still sticks today. As to why the post office and companies use it for mailing addresses instead of the actual municipality, I'm not sure.

For a brief history check out these two sites...

http://www.sunpublications.com/macc/compro/hist.htm
http://www.kshs.org/places/shawnee/history.htm

You'll also see why Johnson county is named that today.

Matt

phxcat · Post by **phxcat** » Tue Mar 02, 2004 7:59 pm

Shawnee Mission is pretty much everything inside 435. I don't know how it started, but I think it is mostly used for post office and schools. Each city used to have its own school district (elementaty district). Shawnee School was, I believe, where the tennis courts are, across the street from St. Joe on Johnson Drive. In 1927, Shawnee Mission Rural High School was built to cover all of the districts within the Shawnee Mission area. I do not know if this covered Olathe and BV as well, but that would have been quite a commute! In the early 50's, Eastopened and SM Rural became North. In the 50's and 60's West, South and Northwest opened (NW in 1969) and somewhere in the late 60's the district unified. That seems like an odd system, but they have a lot of high school and elementary districts out west (I teach in a high school district with 9 high schools and nothing below 9th grade- it is served by two elementary districts.)

The postal district I don;t know about, but I believe it covers about the same territory as the school district, which would include Eastern Shawnee, but not Western Shawnee.

Come to think about it, I would not be surprised if the name comes from the Shawnee Indian Mission (Shawnee Mission) which is in Roeland Park or Fairway, and that the other city names came from that.

kcmajik · Post by **kcmajik** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 3:14 am

really all it is is the name of the post office....HYPOTHETICAL- if you were actually in Kansas City, MO but the post office that serviced your zipcode was a make-believe Westport....the shipping address would be most likely westport, but mail will get wherever solely on the zip code....downtown is 64108 but you could have BLAH BLAH BLAH Smithville MO 64108 and it would still go to the downtown post office and be delivered to the corresponding address in the zip code or return to sender.

that's why at oak park mall which i believe is addressed Overland park, receipts from the ATM say the address of the atm is Shawnee Mission.

KCforumer · Post by **KCforumer** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 4:30 am

A lot of St. Louis suburban municipalities use "St. Louis, MO" even though it is Clayton, University City, etc.

phxcat · Post by **phxcat** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 7:59 am

Sorry, Matt, we posted at the same time!

I was going to mention that too, before you did, Forumer, about St. Louis- my aunt, who lives in Overland, MO has a St. Louis PO zip code.

StL_Dan · Post by **StL_Dan** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 9:34 am

i was thinking the same thing about stl in terms of the postal service

my family lives in bridgeton and creve couer, yet, you can simply right "stl mo" instead of their actual municipality, and mail will arrive just as timely

it comes in handy at christmas time when mailing cards to folks in the stl metro

Slappy the Wang · Post by **Slappy the Wang** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 11:50 am

It's merely a zip code - no joke.

KCK · Post by **KCK** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 12:19 pm

I have had people mail me things that said Kansas City, Missouri on them before and they arrived here fine, it has to be the zip code. Hell I've also had someone write the wrong address on mail to me before and it still came to my house, probably because the name was the same.