[5] In 1880, William Rockhill Nelson started The Kansas City Star, which became The Journal-Post's primary competitor.
[1] In 1896, Van Horn sold the paper to Charles S. Gleed and Hal Gaylord, who renamed it The Kansas City Journal.
[7] The Post, with its tabloid format, red headlines and yellow journalism was linked to the rise of the Tom Pendergast political machine.
Dickey invested in the papers so as to compete with The Star, ultimately bankrupting his own lucrative clay-pipe manufacturing company.
Also in 1938 Journal photographer Jack Wally bylined an undercover photo exposé of gambling houses under Pendergast that ran in Life magazine.