| Pleasant Hill, Missouri | |
|---|---|
| — City — | |
| Location of Pleasant Hill, Missouri | |
| Coordinates: | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Missouri |
| County | Cass |
| Area | |
| • Total | 4.5 sq mi (11.7 km2) |
| • Land | 4.5 sq mi (11.6 km2) |
| • Water | 0.0 sq mi (0.1 km2) |
| Elevation | 906 ft (276 m) |
| Population (2000) | |
| • Total | 5,582 |
| • Density | 1,242.3/sq mi (479.7/km2) |
| Time zone | Central (CST) (UTC-6) |
| • Summer (DST) | CDT (UTC-5) |
| ZIP code | 64080 |
| Area code(s) | 816 |
| FIPS code | 29-58394[1] |
| GNIS feature ID | 0724514[2] |
| Website | www.pleasanthill.com |
Pleasant Hill is a city in Cass County, Missouri, United States. The population was 5,582 at the 2000 census.
Pleasant Hill is home for the Kansas City/Pleasant Hill National Weather Service Forecast Office, which serves 37 counties in northern and western Missouri and seven counties in extreme east-central Kansas.
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Pleasant Hill is located at (38.790481, -94.266056)[3].
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 4.5 square miles (11.7 km²), of which, 4.5 square miles (11.6 km²) of it is land and 0.04 square miles (0.1 km²) of it (0.44%) is water.
Pleasant Hill is located at the convergence of Missouri Highway 7 and Missouri Highway 58. and is approximately 8.7 miles south of US Highway 50.
At the 2000 census[1], there were 5,582 people, 2,070 households and 1,509 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,242.3 per square mile (480.0/km²). There were 2,202 housing units at an average density of 490.1 per square mile (189.4/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 97.55% White, 0.21% African American, 0.34% Native American, 0.38% Asian, 0.45% from other races, and 1.07% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.58% of the population.
There were 2,070 households of which 40.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 58.6% were married couples living together, 10.3% had a female householder with no husband present, and 27.1% were non-families. 22.7% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.66 and the average family size was 3.12.
Age distribution was 30.2% under the age of 18, 8.0% from 18 to 24, 31.9% from 25 to 44, 18.6% from 45 to 64, and 11.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 33 years. For every 100 females there were 94.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 89.0 males.
The median household income was $48,915, and the median family income was $52,799. Males had a median income of $40,394 versus $24,985 for females. The per capita income for the city was $21,623. About 4.0% of families and 5.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 5.1% of those under age 18 and 5.2% of those age 65 or over.
Pleasant Hill is the strongest contributor to the Pleasant Hill R-3 School District, which also includes students from the surrounding areas of Strasburg, East Lynne, and portions of unincorporated Cass County.
In the first half of the 20th century, Pleasant Hill was the home of Allen "Bill" Kennedy, the highly skilled gambler depicted in the book, The Magician and the Cardsharp, by Karl Johnson (Henry Holt, 2005). Magic legend Dai Vernon first heard of the existence of a gambler who could deal any card at will from the center of the deck from a Mexican gambler named Amador Villasenor, who in 1931 was being held for murder in the Sedgwick County Jail in Wichita. Vernon went off in search of the man, whose name and whereabouts he didn't know.
After several months of field research through the Kansas City gambling world, Vernon discovered that Kennedy lived and worked in Pleasant Hill. He visited the town, but no one would tell him where Kennedy lived. Kennedy had been raised there, and made the bulk of his money from a crooked gambling game he and his partner Midnight Underwood ran in the upstairs back room of a doctor's office. After persistent questioning, though, Vernon procured the information from a child by buying her an ice cream cone.
Vernon knocked on Kennedy's door on March 20, 1932, and introduced himself as a card cheat who worked the transatlantic cruise ships. Kennedy was wary at first, but Vernon won him over by showing him an impressive array of cheating sleights. Finally, Kennedy showed Vernon the "center deal," which most magicians thought impossible. However, Kennedy had worked on the sleight for years, building up his hands with five years of hand exercises and working out the mechanics through constant card handling.
Vernon brought the center deal back to the rest of the magic world and made it famous. He passed it on to the top magicians in the country but kept it secret from all others. He finally explained it in the 1980s on his famous "Revelations" video series. Vernon told the story of his pursuit of the center deal for decades, and because of Vernon's status, it took on the aura of legend. Vernon died in 1992 at the age of 98.
Kennedy lived in Pleasant Hill until the mid-1930s, after his partner Midnight Underwood died and he moved to Harrisonville, where he fleeced card players at games off the town square. In the late 1950s, however, liquor got the best of Kennedy and he became the town drunk. He died in March, 1961. His body was brought back to Pleasant Hill, where he was buried without a headstone next to his parents.
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