Mayor H. Roe Bartle Esq, 33°
(Jun 25, 1901-May 9, 1974)
Born: Richmond, VA
Lebanon Lodge #87, Lebanon, Kentucky
Member, Ivanhoe Lodge #446, Kansas City, MO

Scottish Rite
1943 - 32° Consistory of Western Missouri, Kansas City
1951 - Knight Commander of the Court of Honour
1971 - Coroneted 33° Inspector General Honorary

York Rite
Member, Independence Chapter, R.A.M. No. 12, Independence, MO
Member, Palestine Cornmandery No. 17, K.T., Independence, MO

1943 - Ararat Shrine Temple

Occupation:
- Attorney, Mayor of Kansas City, MO (1955 to 1963)
- Boy Scout Executive in Wyoming
- Chief area executive of the Boy Scouts of America
Alum: Fork Union Military Academy, Virginia
University of Chattanooga School of Law
Hamilton College of Law, Chicago
Admitted to the Bar, Kentucky
Admitted to the Bar, Missouri

Brother Bartle founded what is now the H. Roe Bartle Scout Reservation, a 4200 acre Boy Scout Camp outside of Osceola, Missouri, where he acquired the name Chief. He established the Boy Scouts Honor Club the Tribe of Mic-o-Say and donated his salary back to the Boy Scouts for thirty years. He facilitated the relocation of the AFL's Dallas Texans to Kansas City and was mayor when the Kansas City Athletics moved to KC. His greatest source of income would come from public speaking.
Interred: Forest Hill Cemetery, Kansas City, Missouri.

Biography
Mayor H. Roe Bartle was born on June 25, 1901, in Richmond, Virginia. His full name was Harold Roe Bennett Sturdevant Bartle, but he nearly always used the shortened version. After serving in the Navy in World War I, he attended law school at the University of Chattanooga. He was admitted to the Kentucky bar in 1920 and the Missouri bar in 1921. He practiced corporate law and within four years had accumulated enough savings and investments to attain a higher standard of living than his family had possessed during his childhood.

He was a member of 17 boards of directors and owned 5,000 acres in Missouri and Oklahoma. He made approximately 200 public speeches a year ranging upwards from $1,000 per speech - much of which he turned over to the American Humanities Fund of which he was administrator since 1947.

Brother Bartle made a connection with Dr. James E. West, national chief boy scout executive, and arranged to serve as a scout executive in Wyoming. In preparation for moving to Wyoming, Bartle first came to Kansas City in 1921 for a brief training session to prepare for a one-year stint with the Scouts. More than one hundred years ago, he brought the Scouting program to the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. His friendship with a Northern Arapaho, Lone Bear, allowed Bartle to witness firsthand that tribe’s kinship with nature, their strong belief in the Great Spirit, and their adherence to important values.

Through this relationship a bond grew, with Bartle being taught the values, customs and traditions of the American Indian. It was decided that they should establish a Tribe in their Boy Scout camp which would be the honor of all honors going only to those who were top leaders and top campers.

In 1928, Bartle went on to Kansas City and became the chief area executive of the Boy Scouts. He sometimes earned as much as $500 per speech in a time when the average household income in 1950 was only about $3,000. It would became his main source of income.

Brother Bartle then entered politics instead of retirement in the 1950s. At the urging of President Harry Truman, he became the regional stabilization director for the federal government in 1951. He campaigned for mayor in Kansas City in 1955 and won handily despite running as an independent instead of on the non-partisan Citizens Association or the Democratic ticket. One of his most notable actions was attracting the Dallas Texans professional football team to Kansas City the year after they won the AFL championship in 1962. The Texans were renamed the Chiefs in honor of Roe Bartle, who had been given the name Chief by the Boy Scouts Tribe of Mic-o-Say, and came to play in the Superbowl seven times. They lost in their first appearance in Superbowl 1 in 1967 against Green Bay but then won the Superbowl in 1970 against the Vikings. The Chiefs won their third Superbowl appearance, this time against the 49ers, in 2020, lost the Superbowl to the Buccaneers in 2021, then won the next two Superbowls in 2023 against the Eagles and 2024 against the 49ers. The Chiefs made it to the Superbowl a seventh time in 2025 but lost to the Eagles. Mayor Bartle's tenure as mayor also welcomed the arrival of the Philadelphia Athletics to become the Kansas City Athletics major league baseball team in 1954, the building of the Municipal Auditorium Plaza Garage, the Sixth Street Interchange, and additional annexations of land to Kansas City including much of what now comprises Kansas City's northland. He also oversaw the creation of the Kansas City Commission for International Relations and Trade.

After completing two terms as mayor in 1963, H. Roe Bartle continued his volunteer work and speech-giving for another decade until his death on May 8, 1974. Today few people remember that the Chiefs were named after H. Roe Bartle, but his name lives on at the Bartle Hall convention center (completed in 1976), which serves as Kansas City's largest exposition hall, and at the 4200 acre H. Roe Bartle Scout Reservation in Osceola, Missouri that is home to 6,600 Boy Scouts each year.

He was awarded the Most Distinguished Person in Kansas City Award by the American Legion in 1939. He also received honorary degrees from numerous colleges and awards from numerous countries including:

• Great Britain
• Ecuador
• Belgium
• Chile
• Uruguay
• Brazil
• Venezuela
• Peru
• Guatemala
• Mexico