The Rocket on TWA’s Roof
A Kansas City office building borrowed a rocket from Disneyland’s imagined future. The original and its replacement took different routes back to the city.
A white rocket with red TWA lettering stands on the corner of an office roof in Kansas City. The airline installed the original in 1956, borrowing the design from a rocket at Disneyland. The one above the street today is a replacement.
An Airline’s Space-Age Address
TWA sponsored Disneyland’s Rocket to the Moon attraction in the 1950s. Its Moonliner became the model for a smaller rocket at the airline’s new headquarters on Baltimore Avenue.
The office building was completed in 1956, with red and white exterior details matching the company’s colors. Its concrete floor slabs were poured at ground level and lifted into position by hydraulic jacks, a construction method intended to save time and money.
The rocket occupied the southwest corner of the roof. TWA’s executives left for New York in 1964, although other airline departments continued using the Kansas City building afterward. By then, the original rooftop rocket had already been removed.
Two Moonliners in Kansas City
The first Moonliner II was sold to a Missouri travel-trailer manufacturer. It eventually stood outside the company’s Concordia plant, where years of exposure damaged its finish. Disney historian Dan Viets bought it in 1997 and worked with restorer Don Jourdan to return it to its red and white appearance.
When developers restored the former TWA headquarters in the 2000s, Viets did not want the original exposed on the roof again. A replica was fabricated and installed there in September 2006. That is the rocket shown in the accompanying photograph.
The restored original went to an aviation museum near the downtown airport. In September 2025, it moved to the TWA Museum at Wheeler Field. The rooftop replica and the museum’s original now give the rocket two separate addresses in Kansas City.
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Sources & photograph
Adapted from the Hidden Here story catalog. Explore the historical records behind this story.
