Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri, abbreviated KC or KCMO, is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri by population and area. It is located on the Missouri River at its confluence with the Kansas River, within Jackson, Clay, Platte and Cass counties. It is the 38th-most populous city in the United States and sixth-most populous city in the Midwest, with a population of 508,090 at the 2020 census. The Kansas City metropolitan area, which straddles the Missouri–Kansas state line, is the 31st-most populous metropolitan area in the nation, at 2.25 million residents.
Kansas City was founded in the 1830s as a port on the Missouri and Kansas rivers. On June 1, 1850, the town of Kansas was incorporated; soon afterwards, a region designated as the Kansas Territory was established. Confusion between the city and the territory of Kansas ensued, so the name Kansas City was assigned to distinguish the city from the territory. Sited on Missouri's western border with Kansas and with downtown near the rivers' confluence, Kansas City, Missouri, encompasses about, making it the 25th-largest city by total area in the United States. It is one of Jackson County's two seats along with the major satellite city of Independence; and Kansas City's other major Missouri suburbs include Blue Springs, Lee's Summit, Raytown, and Liberty. Kansas City Missouri's major Kansas suburbs include Overland Park, Olathe, Lenexa, and Kansas City, Kansas.
The city is composed of several neighborhoods, including the River Market District, 18th and Vine District, and the Country Club Plaza. Celebrated cultural traditions include Kansas City jazz; theater, as a historical center of the Vaudevillian Orpheum circuit in the 1920s; the nickname City of Fountains; the Chiefs and Royals sports franchises; and cuisine such as Kansas City–style barbecue and strip steak.
History
The town of Kansas, Missouri, was incorporated on June 1, 1850, reincorporated and renamed City of Kansas on March 28, 1853, and renamed Kansas City in 1889. The area straddles the border between Missouri and Kansas at the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri rivers, and was considered a good place to settle.The Antioch Christian Church, Dr. James Compton House, and Woodneath are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Exploration and settlement
In past centuries, the area's tribal inhabitants include the Hopewell tradition, Mississippian culture, Kansa, Osage, Otoe, and Missouri. The first documented European visitor to the eventual site of Kansas City was Étienne de Veniard, Sieur de Bourgmont, who was also the first European to explore the lower Missouri River. Criticized for his response to the Native American attack on Fort Détroit, he had deserted his post as fort commander and was avoiding French authorities. Bourgmont lived with a Native American wife in a village about east near Brunswick, Missouri, where he illegally traded furs.To clear his name, he wrote Exact Description of Louisiana, of Its Harbors, Lands and Rivers, and Names of the Indian Tribes That Occupy It, and the Commerce and Advantages to Be Derived Therefrom for the Establishment of a Colony in 1713 and The Route to Be Taken to Ascend the Missouri River in 1714. In the documents, he describes the junction of the "Grande Riv des Cansez" and Missouri River, as the first adoption of those names. French cartographer Guillaume Delisle used the descriptions to make the area's first reasonably accurate map.
The Spanish took over the region in the Treaty of Paris in 1763, but were not to play a major role other than taxing and licensing Missouri River ship traffic. The French continued their fur trade under Spanish license. The Chouteau family operated under Spanish license at St. Louis, in the lower Missouri Valley as early as 1765 and in 1821 the Chouteaus reached Kansas City, where François Chouteau established Chouteau's Landing.
After the Louisiana Purchase (1803)
After the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, Lewis and Clark visited the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri rivers, noting it was a good place to build a fort. In 1831, a group of Mormons from New York state led by Joseph Smith settled in the area. They built the first school within what became Kansas City, but were forced out by mob violence in 1833.In 1831, Gabriel Prudhomme Sr., a Canadian trapper and partner of François Chouteau, purchased fronting the Missouri River. He established a home for his wife, Josephine, and six children. He operated a ferry on the river.
In 1833, John McCoy, son of Baptist missionary Isaac McCoy and brother-in-law of Johnston Lykins, established West Port along the Santa Fe Trail, south of the river. In 1834, McCoy established Westport Landing on a bend in the Missouri to serve as a landing point for West Port, with Lykins as the first postmaster. He found it more convenient to have his goods offloaded at the Prudhomme landing next to Chouteau's landing than in Independence. Several years after Gabriel Prudhomme's death, a group of fourteen investors purchased his land at auction on November 14, 1838. By 1839, the investors divided the property and the first lots were sold in 1846 after legal complications were settled. The remaining lots were sold by February 1850.
In 1850, the landing area was incorporated as the town of Kansas, Missouri. By that time, the towns of Kansas, Westport, and nearby Independence, had become critical points in the westward expansion of the United States. Three major trails – the Santa Fe, California, and Oregon – all passed through Jackson County.
On February 22, 1853, Kansas was reincorporated and renamed the City of Kansas with its first elected mayor, William Samuel Gregory. Due to a legal discovery of living outside city boundaries, he was soon succeeded by Johnston Lykins as the second mayor. The city had an area of and a population of 2,500. The boundary lines extended from the middle of the Missouri River south to what is now Ninth Street, and from Bluff Street on the west to a point between Holmes Road and Charlotte Street on the east.
American Civil War
During the Civil War, the city and its immediate surroundings were the focus of intense military activity. Although the First Battle of Independence in August 1862 resulted in a Confederate States Army victory, the Confederates were unable to leverage their win in any significant fashion, as Kansas City was occupied by Union troops and proved too heavily fortified to assault. The Second Battle of Independence, which occurred on October 21–22, 1864, as part of Sterling Price's Missouri expedition of 1864, also resulted in a Confederate triumph. Once again their victory proved hollow, as Price was decisively defeated in the pivotal Battle of Westport the next day, effectively ending Confederate efforts to regain Missouri.General Thomas Ewing, in response to a successful raid on nearby Lawrence, Kansas, led by William Quantrill, issued General Order No. 11, forcing the eviction of residents in four western Missouri counties – including Jackson – except those living in the city and nearby communities and those whose allegiance to the Union was certified by Ewing.
After Civil War
After the Civil War, Kansas City grew rapidly. The selection of the city over Leavenworth, Kansas, for the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad bridge over the Missouri River brought significant growth. The population exploding after 1869, when Hannibal Bridge, designed by Octave Chanute, opened. The boom prompted a name change to Kansas City in 1889, and the city limits to be extended south and east. Westport became part of Kansas City on December 2, 1897. In 1900, Kansas City was the 22nd largest city in the country, with a population of 163,752 residents.Landscape architect George Kessler shaped Kansas City into a leading example of the City Beautiful movement, with a network of boulevards and parks. New neighborhoods like Southmoreland and the Rockhill District were conceived to accommodate the city's largest residencies of palatial proportions.
The obsolescence of Union Depot in West Bottoms in favor of the new Union Station in 1914, and the opening of the Liberty Memorial in 1923, provided two of the city's most identifiable landmarks. Robert A. Long, president of the Liberty Memorial Association, was a driving force in the funding for construction. Long was a longtime resident and wealthy businessman. He built the R. A. Long Building for the Long-Bell Lumber Company, his home, Corinthian Hall and Longview Farm.
Further spurring Kansas City's growth was the opening of the innovative Country Club Plaza development by J. C. Nichols in 1925, as part of his Country Club District plan.
20th century streetcar system
once had hundreds of miles of streetcars running through the city and was one of the largest systems in the country. In 1903 the 8th Street Tunnel was built as an underground streetcar system through the city. The last run of the streetcar was on June 23, 1957, but the tunnel still exists.Pendergast era
At the start of the 20th century, political machines gained clout in the city, with the one led by Tom Pendergast dominating the city by 1925. Several important buildings and structures were built during this time, including the Kansas City City Hall and the Jackson County Courthouse. During this time, he aided one of his nephew's friends, Harry S. Truman, in a political career. Truman eventually became a senator, then vice president, then president. The machine fell in 1939 when Pendergast, riddled with health problems, pleaded guilty to tax evasion after long federal investigations. His biographers have summed up his uniqueness:Troost redlining and white flight
was once the eastern edge of Kansas City, Missouri and a residential corridor nicknamed Millionaire Row. It is now widely seen as one of the city's most prominent racial and economic dividing lines due to urban decay, which was caused by white flight. During the civil rights era the city blocked people of color from moving to homes west of Troost Avenue, causing the areas east of Troost to have one of the worst murder rates in the country. This led to the dominating economic success of neighboring Johnson County.In 1950, African Americans represented 12.2% of Kansas City's population. The city's most populous ethnic group, non-Hispanic whites, declined from 89.5% in 1930 to 54.9% in 2010.
In 1940, the city had about 400,000 residents; by 2000, it had about 440,000. From 1940 to 1960, the city more than doubled its physical size, while increasing its population by only about 75,000. By 1970, the city covered approximately, more than five times its size in 1940. Aggressively annexing the surrounding suburbs and undeveloped land spared Kansas City from the severe population loss suffered by cities like St. Louis and Detroit, similar cities which both lost over 50% of their population in the postwar era. In the most neglected neighborhoods, however, the same pattern of abandonment occurred and left behind massive numbers of vacant lots and abandoned homes, especially in the areas east of Troost.