The history of Kansas City, together with a sketch of the commercial resources of the country with which it is surrounded

Preface

With much diffidence on the part of the writer the following pages are submitted to the public. They are the result of much patient research, yet none can be better aware of the imperfections in details than the writer. It has been rather the aim to trace the causes that have led to the almost phenomenal growth of Kansas City, than to follow the details of that growth ; yet sufficient attention has been given to the leading events in the history of Kansas City, it is hoped, to convey an idea of them, as well as to the causes that led to them and to the development here of the city that at this tmie exists.

The writer beheves that the causes leading to the development of the city in any one epoch of her history were but the development of causes in a preceeding epoch, and that the causes of future development exist at this time, which are as much the outgrowth of past causes as the present large city is the outgrowth of past events. Some effort has been made to bring to view these causes both past and present, it is hoped not without some success.

As it is, it is respectfully submitted to public criticism, with the hope that its accounts and conceptions of things may coincide with the recollections of those of our citizens who were witnesses of many of the events it recounts, yet with the fear that they will find much that for accuracy's sake they could wish altered.

The Author.

Kansas City, June, 1881.

GOITMTS.

CHAPTER I. Page

Introductory.— How Ancient Cities were Founded and Built^ — The Considerations Determining their Location— American Cities, how Located and Built — Western Cities — Tlie Importance of Transportation Facilities — Tlie People who Determined their Location, aud Why— "Motion Follows the Line of Least Resistance."... 1

Chapter II

Early Expeditions and Settlements.— The Fur Companies — The First Settlement of Kansas City, How and Why it was Made— In the Wilderness— The Entry of the Land— The French Settlement and Life Among the French Settlers— The Advantages of the Place Recognized by Others— An Anecdote of Washington Irving ■ 8

Chapter III

The Great Indian Trade.- Proposed Removal (^f the Indians to the West — The Nunil)ers to be Moved— The Removal — The New Locations— Effect on Western Trade— Founding of Westport, and Concentration of the Trade There 17

Chapter IV

The Santa Fe Trade. — Its Origin and Character— Its Real Beginning— The Effect of Steamboats — It Locates at Independence—Changing to Westport — Character and Methods of the Trade— Statistics to 1888 21

Chapter V

The Founding of Kansas City.— The Situation in 1838 — The First Ferry — The Santa Fe and Indian Trade Tend to Kansas City— Purchase of the Prudhomme Estate for a Town Site — The Survey and Sale of 1839— Troubles of the Company Retarded the Town — What was Thought of It— Its Earlv Trade— A Doscriiition of Early Kansas City— Efforts to Divert the Santa Fe Trade— Its Suppression in 1813 — Statistics — Situation in 1813- The Great Flood of 1844— The Events of 1813 to 1816 —The Mexican War 27

Chapter VI

Kansas City Redivivus.— Re-organization of the Town Company — The First Great Sale of Lots — An Interesting Record — Bad Titles— Further Surveys" and Sales — The Company Dissolve— Town Development — The California Emigration — The Concentration of the Santa Fe and Indian Trades at Kansas City — Cholera and its Direful Effects — Municipal Organization—The First Newspaper — Revival After the Cholera 40

CHAPTER VII. Page

The Settlement of Kansas. — The Kansas-Nebraska Act— Preparations by Pro- Slavery and Anti-Slavery Parties to Occupy Kansas — Early Settlement — Kansas City Again Recognized — Development of Kansas — Navigation of the Kaw River— The Kansas Troubles— The Effect on Kansas City— Col. Coates 53

" CHAPTER VIII.

The Growth of Kansas City Prior to THE WjCr. — Improvements of Streets and Roads — Trade and Steamboats — Rival Cities— Rapid Growth of Kansas City — Stages and Mails — The Commerce of the Prairies— The First Banks, Jobbing Houses, and Telegraphs— The First Commercial Organization— The Panic of 1857 —The Enlargement of the City 63

Chapter IX

The Inception of our Railroads.— Kansas City Takes the Lead in Efforts to Secure Railroad Facilities — Her Efforts Start a Fever in Railroad Enterprises in Western Missouri and Kansas — The Inception of Her Own Systiui — The Hostility of Kansas— The First Efforts in Behalf of Trans-Continental Railroads — Kansfis City in the Struggle with Both the Slave and Anti-Slave Sections for the Road — The Enthusiasm of the Period — Beginning of llaih-oad Work — The Real Founders of Kansas City, Their Trials and Triumphs 75

Chapter X

Kansas City in the War. — The Excitement and Events Preceding the Great Struggle — The Marshaling of the Hosts on Both Sides— Van Horn's Battalion — The First Fighting— Bush-whackers and Red Legs— The Depression of Trade, and its Revival — Resumption of Raih'oad Building— The Great Raid of 1864 98

Chapter XI

A Great Era in Kansas City.— The Close of the War — The Resumption of Railroad Construction— Seven Roads and the Bridge Completed Before 1870 — Other Railroad Enterprises not Finished — Rapid Growth — Schools, and Street Improvements — Population Grown From « 5,000 to 30,000 110

Chapter XII

The Progress From 1870 to 1872.— Improveruent and Enlargement of the Railroad . Facilities— Inception of the Barge Line —Water and Gas Works Built— The Law Library— The Barge Line— The Exposition, the Board of Trade, and Other Improvements 126

^I

Contents

Page.

Chapter XIII

The Progress of 1873 to 1876.— Street Railroads—Barge Line Agitation — The Panic of 1873— Efforts to Get the Indian Territory Opened to Settlement- Efforts for Transportation Improvements — Free Mail Delivery — The Securing of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroads — How the Latter was Done — The Grasshopper Plague— The Revision of the City Charter— Efforts to Secure a Mint— The Re-organization f)f the Board of Trade, and Building of the Exchange Building. 144

Chapter XIV

The Markets and Packing Houses.— History of the Texas Cattle Trade — Its Final Concentration at Kansas City— Tlie Growth of the Market and Character of the Present Supply— The History of the Packing Business — Why It Came to Kansas City — Its Statistics — Tlie Grain Market, When and How It Started— Its Development^ and Circumstances Attending it — Its Present Facilities and Magnitude 164

Chapter XV

The Progress of Three Years. — The Events of 1877 — The Alton Road— The Union Depot— The Test of Barges on the Missouri — The Great Railway Strike — Bank Suspension — Railway Extension

Page.

Affecting Kansas City — The United States Court House and Post-office, and United States Courts— Rapid Growth of the City 176

^CHAPTER XVI.

The Events of 1880 to 1881.— The Establishment of the Smelting Works— The Barge Company Organized— The Missouri River Improvement Convention— The Missouri River Improvement Association Formed — Street Improvements — Col.

Van Horn's Election to Congress— Railway Construction and Railway Changes —The Great Flood of 1881— The Growth of the City — Statistical Exhibit of the City's History 189

Chapter XVII

Social Development of Kansas City.— The History of tlie Press— Social Societies—Masons — Odd Fellows — Knights of Pythias — Other Secret Orders — The Churches, Schools, and Other Social Institutions 205

Chapter XVIII

Kansas City — Why She is and What She is. — A Summary of the Facts of Her History — The Facts that Caused Her Growtli — Her Markets, Her Railroad System, and Fast Freight Lines- Steamship Agencies — The New West and Its Resources 241

HISTORY OF KANSAS CITY.

Chapter I. Introductory

Hoiv Ancient Cities were Founded and Built — The Considerations Determining their Location — Hoio Modern Cities are Built, and the Consideratio?ts Determining their Location — American Cities, how Located and how Built — IVestern Cities — The Importance of Transportation Facilities — 77/1? People who Determined their Location, and why — *^ Motion Follows the Line of Least Resistance.''^

The first efforts of mankind to build cities antedates history, hence nothing very definite concerning the circumstances and methods is or can be known ; but in the earUer ages of the historic era, when the race was divided into comparatively small and warring factions, arid afterward, when these factions grew to be powerful but not less warlike nations, cities were located by kings and conquerors and built by the people under their immediate supervision and direction. In those warlike ages a site of a city was determined mainly by the advantages of defense of the spot of ground selected, though the contiguity of fertile and pastoral country seems not to have been entirely ignored ; hence cities built in those ages were at once the capital and fortress of the king, while immediately surrounding it was a country susceptible of supporting his subjects. No regard seems to have been had, however, to facilities for transportation, not even so much as would facilitate military operations, while trade, which consisted chiefly of exchange between the people of the town and the adjacent domain, was entirely ignored. Exhanges between people of different dominions existed only as pillage.

In earlier periods, however, the conquering of one people by another, the combination of different cities under the same dominion and the necessities of military operations, seem to have caused more attention to be given to transportation facilities in the location of cities. This was after the adoption of methods for utilizing the larger streams and the inland seas, and the erection of cities after that time seems to have been determined by the three principles of defensibility, contiguity of productive country, arid facilities for water transportation, and hence were usually located on large rivers or arms of the sea. At least it was cities so located that in this period were most prosperous and became most famous.

These features continued to be the ruling factors in determining the location 1 of cities until after the American Revolution. The cities of the United States built before that time were founded, not directly by royal hands, but by those holding royal patents for that purpose, and the same features seem to have been observed by them, as were regarded by kings and conquerors for many previous ages in the Old World.

BUILDING CITIES IN AMERICA.

Since the Revolution, however, cities have ceased to be founded in the United States by authority ; the people have done it themselves, without supervision or interference from government. The sites have been selected by individuals or companies; the grounds staked off, and the lots offered for sale. This done, the balance rested with the people, and though the number of cities founded in this country west of the Alleghany Mountains is almost infinite, each of which was expected by its founders rapidly to become a great emporium, the people have built but few. The popular choice among the many rivals that have presented themselves in every section has been determined by principles as well as ascertained as those of old, and as easy of definition.

CONSIDERATION OF TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES.

Defensibility has ceased to be a consideration, for in the interior of the United States we have had no foe that made it necessary. Contiguity to fertile country can scarcely be said to have exerted an influence, for this country is all fertile. Facilities for transportation, however, have exerted a very great and controlling influence. Having never been a warlike people, and having a country of wonderful and varied productiveness, the Americans are, of necessity, a producing and trading people. The chief consideration to such a people is transportation, and the city or the proposed city, possessing this feature in the highest degree, be it wagon roads, watercourses with keel or steamboats, or railroads, will be most prosperous ; and the one that by such means, each in its age, has accommodated the country farthest into the interior has commanded the widest extent of trade. The history of interior cities is but a history of the development of transportation in its different forms. Where we find that a place now almost obsolete was once more promising than its rivals, we will likely find that it had the best transportation of the kind then employed, but that in some subsequent phase some rival took the advantage and the lead. Indeed there are but few, besides our own city, that from the first have held the advantage over all rivals in all phases of transportational development, or that stand to-day more pre-eminent in this regard.

BY WHOM WESTERN CITIES WERE LOCATED.

The importance of facilities for transportation in determining the location and prosperity of cities cannot be better indicated than by a brief reference to the character, vocation and habits of the class of men who determined the locations of all our important western cities, though they did not actually build any of them. We refer to the pioneer traders, trappers and hunters who preceded the march of civilization from the Atlantic coast — a class now rapidly disappearing into tradition and history, because the wilderness, and the wild animals they loved to chase are gone, and the red men, their companions, associates and foes are rapidly going. Daniel Boone was the type of the American element in this class, and also of the hunters who constituted a part of it; but the most of them appear to have been of French origin or descent. They were divided into three distinct classes — hunters and trappers, traders and voyageurs. This latter class were always in the employ of the traders, and it was their lausiness to propel the water craft which the traders employed in transportation. The hunters and trappers were sometimes independent and sometimes in the employ of the traders. They penetrated far into the wilds and explored the unknown regions. They were the true pioneers. The furs and skins procured by them were sold to the traders, or procured for them. The traders, originally independent but subsequently under the direction of the great fur companies, established posts far into the interior of the wilderness, to which they transported articles suitable for traffic with the Indians, and such supplies as hunters and trappers wanted, and at which they purchased robes, skins and furs, which they transported back to the borders of civilization.

Irving' s " Astoria" and " Booneville" give an excellent history of this trade, which, about the beginning of the present century, was immense, and extended all over the uninhabited parts of North America. The men engaged in it were a brave, adventurous class, for whom the wilderness and association with wild animals and wild men possessed more charms than civiHzation. With a few articles of traffic, a gun and perhaps a few tools for constructing traps, they pushed their way hundreds and even thousands of miles into the untrodden wilderness, not knowing what moment they might fall in with some unknown ferocious animal, or some band of hostile savages. They put their canoes and rafts into streams and followed their course, not knowing to what falls or dangers they might lead. Their lives were a perpetual vigil, and they may be said to have lived with their finger on the trigger. In the beginning they confined their excursions to a limited territory where the valuable fur animals were to be found. Here they spent their winters in solitude, and in the spring went with the proceeds of their trapping to a trading post where they were disposed of and new supplies purchased, when they were off again into the solitude for another year. Subsequently they became the employees or agents of the fur companies, by whom expeditions of great magnitude and extended exploration were undertaken.

The traders were mostly French, and as they employed trappers as well as traded with them and the Indians, and as the fur animals were chiefly found along streams, their posts were usually located on them or near their confluence. The latter were deemed the most desirable locations, as they gave access to larger districts of country by keel boats and pirogues, and hence more easily commanded a larger trade. Their only means of transportation was packing on their own backs, or on the backs of horses, and light water craft which could be propelled in the rivers with pikes. The manifest great superiority of the latter methtid for conducting an extensive trade is sufficient explanation of their preference for the confluence of streams, as the latter gave them access to more than one valley and thus increased possibilities for trade. This explains, also, why the vicinity of Kansas City became so attractive to them when they came to know of it, as the sequel will show that it was • for, from here they had direct access to St. Louis, their headquarters at the time they came here, and had also good command of the upper Missouri, Kansas and Platte River valleys, while it was but a short distance across the prairie country to the valleys of the Osage, Neosho, and Arkansas.

The American and British Governments have always maintained miUtary posts on the frontier, for the protection of advancing settlement, yet they have never led, but always followed these men ; and military men in scientifically determining the strategic advantages of locations for posts have always found the judgment of these pioneers unerring as to the points that held best command of the adjacent country, and have located their posts in the vicinity of the traders and where substantially the same advantages were secured.

The principle underlying these facts — underlying the law of transportation itself — is the long since observed universal physical law that " motion follows the line of least resistance." The movements of communities, classes and individuals whether in commercial, industrial, military, or social efforts, no less than of physical bodies, obey this universal law. All effort emcloys the methods, and follows the lines that most facilitate the attainment of us object, which is but another form of expression of the law that " motion follows the line of least resistance."

Chapter II. Early Expeditions And Settlements

The Fur Companies — Tlie First Settlement at Kansas City — Hozo and IVJiy it was Made — In the Wilderness — The Entry of the Land — The French Settlement, and Life Ainong the French Settlers — The Advantages of the Place Recognized by Others — An Anecdote of Washington Irving.

The French element of the class of pioneers above referred to, settled Canada and the northwestern part of the United States, as well as the country about the mouth of the Mississippi River. They came into the upper Mississippi and Missouri Valleys in 1764, under the lead of Pierre Laclede Liguest (always called Laclede), who held a charter from the French Government, giving him the exclusive right to trade with the Indians in all the country as far north as St. Peters River. Laclede brought part of his colony from France, and received large accessions to it in New Orleans, mainly of hunters and trappers, who had had experience with the Indians. In the year 1764, this colony established itself on the west bank of the Mississippi River, and founded the present city of St. Louis. From this point they immediately began their trading and trapping incursions into the then unbroken wilderness in their front. Their method of proceeding seems to have been to penetrate into the interior and establish small local posts for trading with the Indians, and from whence the trappers and hunters were outfitted and sent out into the adjacent woods. These local posts were many of them independent, but usually they were under the general management of parties in St. Louis. In this way, the country west and northwest of St. Louis was traversed and explored by these people at a very early day as far west as the Rocky Mountains, but of the extent of their operations little has been recorded; hence, little is known concerning the posts established by them. It is known, however, that such posts were established at a very early day, on the Chariton and Grand Rivers, in Missouri, and at Cote Sans Dessein, in Callaway county.

In the year 1799 a post was established in the Blacksnake Hills, near St. Joseph, and in 1800 one was established at Randolph Bluffs, opposite and three miles below Kansas City. The Indian and fur trad e constituted the commerce of St. Louis for half a century, and when the Territory of Louisiana was ceded by France to the United States, in 1803, the population of St. Louis was all of this class of people, and the Indian and fur trade its principal interest.

Prominent among the men who were engaged in an extensive way in this trade, were Auguste and Pierre Chouteau, of St. Louis, who came from France with Laclede. Auguste had charge of the workmen who began the clearing of the forest for the city of St. Louis in 1764. Both at once engaged in the fur and Indian trade. Pierre was interested in the posts on Grand and Chariton Rivers, and it is supposed was the proprietor of the post at Randolph Bluffs, which appears to have been under the immediate charge of Louis Bartholet, afterward known in the settlement at the mouth of the Kaw as " Grand Louis," in counterdistinction to his son, who was known as " Petite Louis." Both these Chouteaus were afterward connected with the Missouri Fur Company, and the sons of Pierre, and Francois, with the American Company.

Probably the firstjfc-hite man who came into the territory of Jackson county was Col. Daniel Mor^n Boone, a son of old Daniel Boone. He came to St. Louis in 1787, where he was warmly received by the trappers and traders. In a memoir of him written by the late Dr. Johnson Lykins, of this city, it is stated that he spent twelve winters trapping beavers on the Blue, spending his summers in St. Louis. He was married in the year 1800, when he abandoned trapping. After the settlement of the county he returned and located on a farm near Westport, where he remained until his death from Asiatic cholera in 1832.

THE FUR COMPANIES.

The increase of the volume of any business and of the amount of capital employed in it, naturally leads to more extended operations and more systematic methods. It gives rise also to a tendency to concentrate into fewer hands. This was true of the fur and Indian trade as well as of all others. In 1787 this universal tendency of business to concentrate led to an abandonment, to a large extent, in Canada, of the simple individual methods above described, and the organization of the Northwest Fur Company at Montreal. John Jacob Astor, of New York, having been for some time interested in the fur trade with others began business for himself in 1807, and in 1809 organized the American Fur Company. The year before this event, that is 1808, twelve persons, among whom were Pierre and Auguste Chouteau, residing at St. Louis, gave systematic shape to the trade of the Missouri valley by the organization of the Missouri Fur Company, of which, Manuel Lisa, a Spaniard, was the leader. Sometime previous to this the Mackinaw Company was organized in the northwest in the region of the lakes. About 1809 or 1810 the Missouri, American and Northwestern companies began to push their expeditions across the Kocky Mountains about the head-waters of the Missouri and Columbia rivers, with a view of establishing a chain of posts across the continent, and they thus became strong rivals. They made one expedition each and effected the desired lodgment, but, owing to the unfortunate killing of a Blackfoot chief, there arose a hostility on the part of those Indians which drove out the American and Missouri companies.

At this time there was another more northern company operating in the nothwest, known as the Hudson Bay Company. In 18 10 Mr. Astor organized the Pacific Fur Company and undertook the Astoria enterprise, of which Washington Irving has written such an excellent history. In 1811 the Mackinaw company was bought out by the American and Northwestern companies, jointly, and its territory and effects divided between them. This year the American company sent a second expedition up the Missouri River under charge of Wilson P. Hunt, who was closely followed and strongly opposed by a second expedition of the Missouri company, under Manuel Lisa.

During the war of 181 2, the Astoria enterprise failed, and it was some years before the American company again attempted extended operations in the far northwest. In 181 3 the Missouri Fur Company was merged into the American, and in 1819 a branch house of the latter was established at St. Louis, under the general direction of Samuel Abbott. The Chouteaus and others who had been connected with the old Missouri company then became connected with it. Pierre Chouteau, eldest son of Pierre Chouteau, who came from France, was quite prominent in its operations, and his brother, Francois Chouteau, was also connected with it This company having inherited the posts and trade of the Missouri company, occupied the territory included in Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska, and extended also into Arkansas and the Indian Territory, although there were still a number of independent traders in this territory. After the absorption of the Missouri company, the American company began to make great efforts to monopolize the trade of the southwest by rooting out the independent traders. In pursuance of this, Francois Chouteau was sent into the country to establish posts and to bring the local traders into subordination to the company. At what time he first entered upon this work is unknown, but he was thus engaged for several years. Among the posts thus established by him, was one on the Kaw River about twenty miles from its mouth, known as the "Four Houses," from the fact that it consisted of four log houses so arranged as to inclose a square court equal in size to the width of one of the houses. In other words a square was marked off and the houses built so that one end of each should be on one line of the square, the corners touching. This form of construction presented in each direction a defensible front equal to the length of two houses and the width of another.

FIRST SETTLEMENT AT KANSAS CITY.

In the spring of 182 1 M. Chouteau was sent back to this country to establish a general agency for the posts he had established or connected with the company, from which supplies could be sent to the posts, and at which the proceeds of the trade could be collected. The extent of this trade was such as to demand an establishment of this kind nearer than St. Louis. The knowledge of the country he had already acquired enabled him to judge of the merits of different points for such agency, having in view always the advantage offered by each for extended operations by the methods of transportation then employed. At the Kawsmouth he had access by water to the entire valleys of the Kaw, Missouri, Platte and smaller tributaries, while it afforded the shortest land transit to the Indians of the plains and to the valleys of the Osage, Neosho and Arkansas. Hence, with that unerring judgment for which his class was peculiar, he selected this point and established himself in the bottom opposite Randolph Bluffs, about three miles below what is now Kansas City. This was the first recognition of the natural advantages of this angle of the river for a large distributive trade, and the actual founding of the interest which has since expanded into the varied and wide extended activities of this city. He brought with him at this time about thirty men, all of whom were employed in the service of the company as courriers des bois or voyageurs, and through them he concentrated at his general agency here the trade of the trans-Missouri country. His post at this point was in a sense a trading post for the Indians near by, but its distinctive feature was as a depot of supply and as a point of concentration for traders, trappers, hunters, and the interior posts. In the fall of the same year he brought his family to this post in a keel boat, which was towed all the way from St. Louis» The men who came with M. Chouteau, in 1821, were, with few exceptions, dispatched into the interior, where they established trading posts or traveled and traded among the Indians.

At a later date, 1825, M. Chouteau's younger brother, Cyprian, joined him here and soon afterward built a trading house on the south side of the Kaw River about opposite the present site of Muncie. A few years later he was joined here by another brother, Frederick, now living at Westport, in this county, and afterward they removed their post about eighty miles up the Kaw River.

In 1826 there was a flood in the rivers which washed away M. Chouteau's houses opposite Randolph Bluffs and caused great loss. A part of the stock was taken to Randolph Bluffs; he sent his family to the Four Houses, and soon afterward rebuilt his house, but this time higher up and on higher ground, which is now embraced in what is known as Guiuott's Addition to Kansas City. This place became wellknown as "Chouteau's Warehouse," and was the landing place for large amounts of freight for Indian trade, and for the trade with northern Mexico, which subsequently sprung up here.

M. Chouteau subsequently entered the land on which his house stood, thus becoming a permanent resident. He continued here until he died in 1840, and his aged wife and his son, Pierre M. Chouteau, still reside in this city.