The U.S. Epperson Collection is housed in LaBudde Special Collections at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. The collection consists of material related to Kansas City businessman and philanthropist Uriah Spray Epperson and his wife Mary Elizabeth Weaver Epperson, whose palatial home at 5200 Cherry Street was willed to the University after Mrs. Epperson’s death in 1939. The Epperson House has served as a number of different types of offices, classrooms and spaces at UMKC over the years, including a men’s dormitory, the School of Education, and the Department of Architecture, Urban Planning and Design.

The collection contains articles, news clippings, documents and ephemera related to Epperson and his wife; the Epperson House; the U.S. Epperson Memorial Hall at the Kansas City Art Institute; and Epperson’s Megaphone Minstrels, a charitable troupe comprising prominent local business and civic leaders (and included white performers in blackface); as well as other miscellanea about Epperson’s life. Also included are correspondence written to and from Epperson, his wife, friends, and colleagues. Completing the collection are 37 photographs, including shots of the Epperson House under construction in the early 1920s, and a copper-plated woodblock with a portrait impression of Epperson.