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Harold Roe Bartle

American businessman, philanthropist and politician (1901–1974)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 13, 2026
Entity authorityQ5662226 ↗
Source-derived summary

Harold Roe Bennett Sturdyvant Bartle (June 25, 1901 – May 9, 1974), better known as H. Roe Bartle, was an American businessman, philanthropist, executive, and professional public speaker who served two terms as mayor of Kansas City, Missouri. After Bartle helped lure the Dallas Texans American Football League team to Kansas City in 1962, owner Lamar Hunt renamed the franchise the Kansas City Chiefs after Bartle's nickname, The Chief.

Early life and education

Bartle was born in Richmond, Virginia, the only child of Samuel Dunn Bartle, an English immigrant and Presbyterian minister, and Ada Mae Roe, of northern Illinois. The Bartle family was musical, and at age thirteen, Harold was playing the piano and organ at his father's church. The same year, he also attempted to enlist in the army, but his father produced proof of his age and had him discharged.

Between 1916 and 1920, Bartle attended Fork Union Military Academy, where his father taught history and military science. There, Roe (as he now insisted on being called) became a championship debater. He attended the University of Chattanooga in 1920, where he proved a natural athlete, but suffered a serious bout of pneumonia. He returned to his family, now in Lebanon, Kentucky, where in 1921, he earned a law degree from Hamilton College of Law, a Chicago-based correspondence school.

Personal life

Bartle met Margaret Ann Caroline Jarvis in Lebanon, and they were married on September 26, 1923, in St.

Editorial summary

“Harold Roe Bartle” enters the record as american businessman, philanthropist and politician (1901–1974). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Harold, Bartle and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1901, 1974, 1962, 1916—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1901-06-25. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Harold, Bartle and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Harold Roe Bartle” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Harold, Bartle and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5662226. VIAF identifies the subject as 250758779. The Library of Congress control number is no2012085695. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1901, 1974, 1962 and 1916.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Harold Roe Bartle”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Harold Roe Bartle primary sources, Harold Roe Bartle archive and Harold research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Harold Roe Bartle”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Harold Roe Bartle” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.