‘The most visionary Mayor’: Former Kansas City Mayor Charles Wheeler dies at age 96

Charles B. Wheeler, a fixture in Kansas City politics for at least 60 years, died Tuesday at age 96.

Wheeler was Kansas City’s 49th mayor, serving two terms from 1971 to 1979. His time in politics lasted so long that the two previous elected posts he held prior to becoming mayor no longer exist.

Mayor Quinton Lucas said Wheeler was a personal friend, mentor and “statesman all Kansas Citians, Missourians, and Americans could be proud of.”

“Mayor Wheeler leaves behind a legacy which will be felt for generations to come,” Lucas said in a statement posted on social media.

U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a former Kansas City mayor who now serves in Congress, called Wheeler “the most visionary Mayor in the history of our great city.”

Colleagues remembered Wheeler as a politician who possessed a skill for connecting with the common voter, a skill that stood out in a city where politicians more typically favor captains of industry and political allies.

“Charlie was the little man’s mayor — he represented everybody,” Joe Serviss, a former member of the Kansas City Council who served while Wheeler was mayor, told The Star last year. “And that was a significant part of his effect on the city.”

Lifetime of service

Wheeler was born in Kansas City and attended Kansas City schools.

He served in the Navy and the Air Force where he became a flight surgeon for the Thunderbirds, an aerial acrobat team. While in medical school, he met his future wife Marjorie Martin.

Trained in both medicine and the law, Wheeler owned Wheeler Medical Laboratories starting in 1964.

That same year, he was elected Jackson County coroner where he began a training program for homicide detectives, teaching them how to examine bodies to understand probable causes of death, his obituary said. That evolved into the Kansas City Metro Squad.

He was elected as the western judge of the Jackson County court in 1967, back before the county moved to its current charter form of government.

Perhaps nowhere was that skill more apparent than when Wheeler ran for mayor in 1971. Wheeler faced off against Dutton Brookfield, who was a business executive with the Unitog company. Brookfield was the preferred candidate of the Citizens Association, a klatch of business and civic power brokers who wielded influence at City Hall at the time.

At a mayoral debate early during that campaign, Brookfield tried to portray Wheeler as a prickly man who would have a difficult time forging relationships necessary to move ideas ahead at City Hall.

“I am tired of being painted as the guy who is hard to get along with,” Wheeler said then. “My friends know differently.”

Wheeler warned voters about Brookfield’s connections.

“I feel that he (Brookfield) did get along very well with a very clubby little group and I don’t want Kansas City to be governed by the same small handful of men that Dutton gets along very well with,” Wheeler said. “I want to deal with the public and I do think Dutton gets along better with the well-to-do than he does with the masses.”

That message resonated with voters, who sent Wheeler to the 29th floor of City Hall. Serving as mayor was “a job he undoubtedly enjoyed the most,” his obituary said.

Wheeler’s colleagues also remembered him as a creative politician with a knack for colorful political stunts and big ideas.

“Having both a J.D. and an M.D., Charlie very likely was the smartest Mayor in our city’s history,” Cleaver said. “And when you mix that with his daring, you get a powerful combination of genius with imagination.”

Joel Pelofsky, who served on the Kansas City Council during Wheeler’s time as mayor, also recalled Wheeler’s penchant for big and whimsical ideas, the details for which were often left to others.

“I always used to say that he would drop ideas out on a rather active basis and let people come along behind him and implement them,” Pelofsky said in an interview with The Star last year.

Cleaver recalled how Wheeler as mayor wanted to pursue a high-speed train that would connect Kansas City and St. Louis.

“You might want to check your newspaper’s editorials too, because people just thought that that was crazy,” Cleaver said. “And I had said publicly and I will say it until until my memory collapses...you can imagine where we would be had we done it, had we embraced his vision.”

Several recognizable civic projects occurred under Wheeler’s watch. Kansas City International Airport was completed and opened when Wheeler was mayor (the effort started under Ilus Davis). Kemper Arena and Bartle Hall were built.

Wheeler sought a third term as mayor in 1979 but voters decided to take a different path, opting to put the first Republican in the mayor’s office since 1924 when they elected Richard Berkley. Wheeler sought to recapture the mayor’s office four years later but the voters stuck with Berkley.

‘Creativity requires courage’

Even out of office, Wheeler kept up his pursuit for big ideas. His fondness for trains re-emerged publicly in the 1990s.

In 1996, Wheeler, along with others, broached the idea of construction of a bullet train along Interstate 70 between Kansas City and St. Louis. The group thought the idea could help St. Louis land the World’s Fair in 2004 — exactly 100 years after it hosted the same event — and make Kansas City and the rest of Missouri look attractive for a bid for the Summer Olympics by 2016.

“He the most creative guy to serve in the mayor’s office,” Cleaver said. “Creativity requires courage. And you cannot be a good mayor if you’re not creating.”

Wheeler used whatever political muscle he had to help support more realistic causes. He threw his support behind proposals like expanding the Kansas City Zoo and Bartle Hall.

He returned to public office when voters elected him to the Missouri Senate. He served there for one term, from 2003 to 2007, before Jolie Justus took the seat.

In his later years, Wheeler could often be spotted in the gallery of City Hall council chambers, keeping an eye on what elected officials were up to.

Wheeler married Marjorie Martin Wheeler in 1949. They were golfers and often played with athletes from the Chiefs and the Royals, his obituary said. Marjorie died in 2019; her obituary said she was “a constant supporter of her husband’s various medical and political activities and loyally ate many chicken dinners at innumerable banquets.”

The couple had five children. Three of Wheeler’s sons preceded him in death.

One of Wheeler’s sons, Mark A. Wheeler, died in 1988. Mark was a passenger in a commuter plane that crashed near an airport in Durango, Colorado. Another son, Gordon G. Wheeler, died in 2000. Graham Wheeler died on Aug. 30, 2020 in the hospice unit of a nursing center.

Wheeler is survived by daughters Marion Wheeler and Nina Wheeler Yoakum, six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Services will be held at 4 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 5, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 11 East 40th St.

The Star’s Jonathan Shorman contributed to this story.