William Thornton Kemper Sr., 32°
(Nov 3, 1866-Jan 19, 1938 )
Member, Temple #299

1909 - 32° Consistory of Western Missouri, Kansas City, Life member

Occupation: Banker
Recommended: VF Boor, OH Swearingen

Interred: Forest Hill Cemetery

William Thornton Kemper, Sr. was the patriarch of the Kemper family who developed both Commerce Bancshares and United Missouri Bank to become major banking family in the Midwest. He founded the Kemper Grain Company and the Kemper Loan and Investment Company. He was majority stockholder of the defunct Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railroad. Oil was discovered in several places along the track making him wealthier yet. He made a killing selling the Commerce Bank at $220 per share, only to buy it back several years later for $86 per share. He was treasurer of the Kansas City Commercial Club. He moved to Kansas City, Missouri in 1890 and lived there until his death.

William Kemper was born in Gallatin, Missouri. He was eleven years old when he found work at a dry goods store in St. Joseph, Missouri. At fourteen he found employment at a St Joseph shoe store saving much of his $3 a week salary. His experience as a traveling salesman regularly took him through the town of Valley Falls and in 1886 he applied his small savings establishing a store there, Evans and Kemper, as a dealer dry goods, boots, shoes, hats, and caps.

Success in Valley Falls led to a friendship with one of the town's leading citizens, Rufus Crosby, a cattleman and head of the Valley Falls Bank of Deposit. Crosby made the 22-year old Kemper bank cashier, and several years later Kemper received an invitation to become a bank partner. Kemper married Crosby's daughter, Charlotte, on June 10, 1890.

Kemper and his wife moved to Kansas City in 1893 where he established himself as a grain merchant, working out of the Kansas City Board of Trade. He became that organization's youngest ever president at age 34. Over the next decade he also reaped profits from several of his own creations: Kemper Mill and Elevator Company, Kemper Mercantile Company, and Kemper Missouri Valley Special Collections.

An avid Democrat, Kemper had a lifelong taste for politics. He was appointed to a seat on the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners by the governor of Missouri in 1902, and ran for mayor of Kansas City in 1904, losing in a year when the Democratic vote was split by a factional rift. He made another run for mayor in 1906 on an anti-bossism platform, but his party's nomination went to the Democratic machine-backed candidate. Despite these losses, Kemper remained interested in politics. He served as Missouri's Democratic National Committeeman from 1924-36 and was discussed as a potential candidate for governor throughout his 50s and 60s but never ran for the office.

In 1906, Kemper was recruited by Dr. William Stone Woods to head an affiliate of his National Bank of Commerce. Over the course of the next two decades, the organization led by Kemper evolved into the Commerce Trust Company, reaching new heights with the construction of its 16-story headquarters at 10th and Walnut, although the frequent presence of Uncle Bill in the building's ground-level lobby reflected his preference for the human side of banking.

By the time William T. Kemper died at the age of 72 on January 19, 1938, the Commerce Trust Company, onto which he had so impressed his philosophy of business and life, was led by his middle son, James M. Kemper. Decades later, William T. Kemper's oldest son, Rufus Crosby Kemper, engineered the growth and success of City National Bank and Trust, antecedent of today's UMB Bank.