Peek through the windows of 4303 Jefferson St. And there is a shop full of inventory: bags of incense, functions, dreams, candles, handmade jewelry.
But Temple Slug, once a destination of alternative home decor and a casual landmark of the Kansas City counter -culture trade, has been closed to the public since the first days of the pandemic. The answers to his future questions were difficult to achieve.
Uncertainty deepened this spring when the founder and longtime owner Bob Gamer died at the age of 86. His Pastin Keith Buchanan, who managed the store in his shorter years, died two days later.
Business and property are believed to have been left to Lynn Lynn Gamer, Bob’s wife and Buchanan’s mother. The star failed to reach May Lin. But friends and former employees of Slug temple have said he lives in the retirement home, and the property south of Westport is already governed by trust.
Carol Hillman, a close friend of Buchanan, said that since she had no brothers and sisters or children, she and several other friends and neighbors were activated to help in the production of his death – writing the obituaries of the two men and organizing upcoming holidays of life. But it is in the dark with regard to the future of the place.
“No one outside the family or trust company really knows what is happening (with Slug temple),” Hillman said. “We have heard from many people with kind memories of the store and who are interested in turning it into something that honors the history of the neighborhood. I know that many people are curious about its future. But many of us are also in the same boat.”
Among those who would like to see the reserved building are members of the Steptoe Lives coalition. The group is trying to keep what left of the Steptoe neighborhood, a historic black community, south of Westport, between Summit and Wornall from the 43rd to 44 streets. Many of the homes and structures in the area have been demolished in recent years to make room for new apartments and the expansion of the nearby St. Luke health center.
“I grew up in an original house in this neighborhood and spent a lot of time as a child in Temple Slug,” says Leah Suttington, a member of the group. “The area was a beautiful crossroads of the white and black communities in Kansas City. This is a special part of Westport’s history. It would be nice to keep (temple slug) as some tribute to it instead of just knocking it out to make room for more apartments.”
Suttington said she had heard that the temple of the temple, as well as several other houses that the gamer owned east on the 43rd street, would soon be sold. But she could not confirm where she heard this and the properties were not indicated for the sale of any real estate.
According to the ownership of Jackson County, these buildings are still owned by the Jefferson Associates Inc., but this business was administratively dissolved by Missouri in 2022 for not submitting a registration report.
Deatra Nile-Jain, who also grew up in Steptoe and is a member of the nearby Missionary Baptist Church of St. James, said she was concerned about what would happen to this block now that Gamer is gone.
“Bob was on the board of the Plaza/Westport neighborhood and was always very committed to keeping accessible single-family homes in Steptoe,” Nelly-Eine said. “There is often tension between business owners and residents in the neighborhood, but Bob has always been a Steptoe champion – to keep this story alive.”
The Westport Counterculture Heritage
The temple servant has never been just a store. He began his life on the day of the April fools 1970, when a gamer, a professor of political sciences of UMKC, who returned from a four -year stay in Singapore, filled a former grocery store in Westport with Indian textiles, dried flowers, candles for strobes and lots of incense.
“They had all these wonderful things in Asia, and Vietnam veterans returned them home,” Gamer told The Star in 1995, “I wanted to present these things in Kansas City.”
He soon became the main store, selling candy, rolled papers and lava lamps. While the sign outside the temple still notes, the store was also one of the first in the country to carry water beds – a winning niche in the 70s. Temple Slug has become the Westport Alternative Stage Center.
“It was a center for artists and liberal thought, a place to gather,” recalls Michael Felix, who worked at Temple Slug for 12 years, starting in the early 1990s.
“The magic of the plug was related to Bob,” said April Murray, who ruled the store in the mid-1990s. “He treated every person who came in as an old friend and taught me to do the same. It was never about the difficult sale – everything was for the person and made everyone feel comfortable.”
The goods developed over time. When a Futon’s mania from the 1990s, Temple Slug was already there.
“We were on top of this,” Felix said. “It was before IKEA, and the tendency to destroy the furniture was really hot. We sold many feet to children and young professionals in the city.”
Buchanan, a trained industrial designer and assistant at the Institute of Art in Kansas, took over the store in its late years, adding a tea shop in 2010.
“Keith took care of her hands for Bob and May and everything else,” Murray said.
Covid Shut Temple Slug Down in 2020. Hilman said Buchanan continues to execute online orders in one year.
“But then it just got out completely,” she said. “It’s kind of like a mausoleum there.”
Bob’s death was not unexpected – he ruled Parkinson’s for a while, Murray said. “But Keith was a surprise, though it might not be in retrospective, given everything he tried to manage for so long.”
Hilman said he encouraged friends, neighbors and former SLUG employees to attend a holiday of life organized for Bob in Simpson House (4509 Walnut St.) on June 21 from 1 to 3 pm.