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JWR VerifiedJWR-2026-000073

Oldest Building in Kansas Originally Built as a Synagogue

Record holder

Former Temple B’nai JeshurunPlace

Record value

Built in 1916

Country: United StatesAchievement location: Leavenworth, Kansas, United StatesAchievement date: 1916Current record

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Former Temple B’nai Jeshurun building in Leavenworth, Kansas

Exterior of the surviving 1916 former Temple B’nai Jeshurun building, photographed 18 September 2020.Melissa Bower / Wikimedia CommonsSourceCC BY-SA 4.0

Official record definition

The earliest-built extant building within the U.S. state of Kansas that was purpose-designed and constructed as a synagogue. Congregation founding date, current Jewish ownership or worship use, continuous use, adaptive reuse, membership, floor area and seating capacity are outside the metric.

Measurement methodology

Statewide chronology of extant purpose-built synagogue buildings in Kansas, anchored by municipal, historical-marker and Jewish archival sources and checked against materially earlier synagogue-building candidates.

Measurement point: earliest surviving purpose-built synagogue building

Record story

The former Temple B’nai Jeshurun in Leavenworth is recognised as the "Oldest Building in Kansas Originally Built as a Synagogue". The structure was "Built in 1916", replacing the congregation's original 1866 frame synagogue on the same site. According to a 2012 historical marker and city records, the earlier building was razed to make way for the present one. Although the 1866 original was Kansas’s first permanent Jewish house of worship, it was demolished and therefore cannot hold a record for a surviving building.

The 1916 replacement served the B'nai Jeshurun congregation for Jewish worship until the 1970s and now contains private residences. The record is based on identifying the "earliest surviving purpose-built synagogue building" in the U.S. state of Kansas. Research confirmed that other historically early synagogue buildings in Kansas City, Topeka, and Wichita were all built at a later date. The record is specific to the building's origin and survival, and does not make a claim of continuous or current Jewish worship.

How JWR verified this record

Verification date
3 September 2026
Verification standard
JWR Verification Standard 1.0

Achievement evidence

The City of Leavenworth and the 2012 historical marker state that the original 1866 frame B’nai Jeshurun synagogue was razed in 1916 and replaced on the same site by the present structure, which served Jewish worship until the 1970s and now contains private residences.

Superiority evidence

State counter-search found no earlier extant purpose-built synagogue building in Kansas. The historically first 1866 Leavenworth synagogue was demolished; other materially early Kansas synagogue buildings documented in Kansas City, Topeka and Wichita are later. The claim is limited to the surviving 1916 structure and does not call it Kansas’s first synagogue.

Jewish Eligibility — Verified by JWR

Jewish eligibility verification

Evidence establishing that the holder qualifies as Jewish for JWR purposes.

  • Temple B'nai Jeshurun (Leavenworth, Kan.) Records, 1895–1960 — Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives

Achievement / record verification

Evidence establishing that the holder achieved the result and holds the record as defined.

  • Temple B'Nai Jeshurun — City of Leavenworth, Kansas
  • Temple B'Nai Jeshurun Historical Marker — Historical Marker Database
  • Temple B'Nai Jeshurun plaque in Leavenworth, Kansas image by Melissa Bower — Wikimedia Commons — Wikimedia Commons

Superiority / counter-candidate verification

Evidence comparing the result with other candidates relevant to the record claim.

  • Former Temple B'Nai Jeshurun in Leavenworth, Kansas image by Melissa Bower — Wikimedia Commons — Wikimedia Commons

Jewish eligibility, achievement and superiority evidence retain their separate classifications and are never merged. Context and provenance are not presented as proof of the achievement. Restricted evidence and internal research notes are never published. Learn more about the seven-stage process on the verification page.

Sources & Verification

History

  1. Verified

    Verified according to JWR Verification Standard 1.0.

  2. Publishedv1

    Published to the official JWR registry.

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