Henry Perry - "The Bar B Q King" (1875-1940)

Henry Perry was born about 1875 in Shelby County, Tennessee near Memphis. He worked in steamboat restaurants on the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers and in 1907, he moved to Kansas City, Missouri. Perry began his enterprise cooking at an ally stand to customers in the Garment District and did considerable business with his smoked meats which he wrapped in newspapers.The barbequed meats that Perry sold included beef, poultry, pork and wild game. To compliment his meats, Perry developed a spicy, peppery sauce. With the business doing well, Perry moved his stand into the black community at 17th and Lydia, eventually opening a restaurant at 19th and Highland. This restaurant, an old trolley barn, was the location during most of the 1920s and 1930s.

Perry died on March 22, 1940. The influence of Perry, known as the the “Barbeque King” continued to extend into the barbeque community to both Arthur Bryants and Gates & Son Bar-B-Q. Also known as the “Father of Kansas City barbeque,” Perry became the first recorded successful barbeque business in Kansas City.