7 Things Missourians Remember About the Plaza Lights in Kansas City
Thanksgiving night, Nov. 26, is when the Plaza lights are set to come on over Kansas City this year.
You’ve probably seen them glow, but the lights once went dark for years during World War II.
Here’s what Missourians remember about the Plaza lights in Kansas City, and how the tradition got started.
1. One String Over a Doorway
The Plaza lights started in 1925 on the Mill Creek Building.
Charles Pitrat, a maintenance supervisor for the J.C. Nichols Company, hung Christmas lights there for the first time.
A small string of lights hung over the doorway, with small Christmas trees along the sidewalk.
The Kansas City Public Library calls that display hardly impressive by modern standards.
You can trace every strand on that street back to one doorway.
2. Rooftop Strands in 1928
Continuous strings of lights first ran along the Plaza in 1928, on the newly opened Plaza Theater.
Pitrat marked the opening by stringing several strands of lights to the rooftops of opposing buildings along 47th Street.
That put the lights over the street, not just beside it.
Colored bulbs lined the Plaza’s buildings the next year.
The Kansas City Public Library says lights added to building edges and roofs in 1929 established the outline pattern the Plaza is known for.
Pitrat kept adding more.
When you look up along 47th Street today, you’re seeing the same idea, only bigger.
3. First Ceremony in 1930
KCTV5 dates the first official Plaza lighting ceremony to Nov. 27, 1930, five years after the lone string of bulbs.
The ceremony now takes place on Thanksgiving night.
Many people remember Thanksgiving night at the Plaza as the start of the holiday season.
The ceremony was once filmed and is now broadcast on TV and online, so you can watch from home.
If you go this year, you’ll be joining a ceremony that has run for decades.
Which Year Began the Plaza Lights Count?
Accounts of the Plaza lights ceremony disagree by a year.
An older Kansas City Public Library blog post dates the first formal lighting to 1929.
The Library’s December 2025 article says the lights have outlined the Plaza officially since 1930.
Kansas City TV station KSHB dates the first ceremony to 1930.
4. Going Dark in World War II
By 1940, the display had grown to an estimated 25,000 bulbs.
Then World War II kept the Plaza lights off from 1942 to 1945.
They were back by 1946.
5. Famous Hands on the Switch
Walter Cronkite is among the celebrities who have been invited to flip the switch on the Plaza lights, and Jason Sudeikis is one of the more recent guests.
Royals Hall of Famer George Brett has done it more than once.
In 2019, Kansas City native Heidi Gardner of Saturday Night Live flipped it too.
In 2017, Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith and linebacker Derrick Johnson helped flip the switch, along with a child picked at random from the audience, KSHB reported.
Psst! How much do you know about the Country Club Plaza? Take our quiz and see if you can ace it.
Quiz
Plaza Lights Trivia
Answer these questions on the Country Club Plaza and its holiday lights. See if you can get every one right.
When J.C. Nichols announced his plans for the Plaza in 1922, skeptics gave the project what nickname?
6. Flooding in 1977
A deadly flood hit the Plaza months before the 1977 lights went on.
The flood damaged 77 of the Plaza's 155 businesses.
Longtime Kansas City TV anchor Larry Moore emceed the ceremony for decades.
He remembers “a lot of questions as to whether there was going to be a lighting ceremony or not.”
The ceremony went ahead that year.
7. Switching to LEDs
In 2014, the Plaza swapped almost 300,000 incandescent bulbs for LEDs.
Today the display uses eighty miles of lights.
Crews string those lights across fifteen blocks.
Early Decorations and a Song
Early Plaza lights shared the season with candles, Santa Claus and Christmas trees.
In 1951, local songwriter Roger Webb wrote a song titled "Plaza Lights," the Kansas City Public Library says.
Recent Hard Years
In 2009, the Plaza lights came on, all 287,000 of them, during the Great Recession.
Then, in 2020, police asked Kansas City residents not to attend the ceremony during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fireworks still went off, and the city was encouraged to watch from home.
If you watched from your couch that year, you were doing what the city asked.
The lights still came on.
Planning Around Thanksgiving
If you're planning around the Plaza lights this year, mark Thanksgiving night on Nov. 26.
KSHB called the 2024 ceremony the 95th Plaza lighting.
Fireworks have followed the lighting in recent years.
Last year's ceremony kicked off at 6:30 p.m. with live performances and music.
Kansas City Current players then flipped the switch at 7:55 p.m., about an hour later than normal.
Check the start time before you go, since this year's may land at a different hour.
Visit KC, the city's tourism bureau, says the big switch on the stage turns on all the lights.
When the season ends, every strand is down by March and taken to a shop to be checked, coiled, tied, wrapped and cataloged.
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