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A 
 BIRTHDAY BOOK 
 
 of 
 
 KANSAS CITY 
 
 1821-1921 
 
 CHARLES PHELPS GUSHING 
 
 ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS 
 
 
 Kansas City, Missouri 
 
 BURTON PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 Publishers 
 
.V<2 
 
 Copyrighted 1921 by 
 Burton Publishing Company 
 
 0C7 lu 
 
 1321 
 
 ©CI.A6247a5 
 
Dedicated to 
 
 J. C. NICHOLS 
 
 Who, though not a pioneer in the work of 
 making Kansas City "a good place to live 
 in," has set us as brave an example, both of 
 vision and of accomplishment, as any of our 
 forefathers.. — By the Author. 
 
A BIRTHDAY BOOK OF 
 KANSAS CITY 
 
 We eagerly devour these days the life 
 stories of successful men, hoping to find 
 in them something to our personal profit. 
 Might we not equally profit by dipping 
 into the life story of a successful city, 
 which won against great odds by the same 
 kind of pluck and vision through which 
 great men attain success? The principles 
 which apply to individuals hold also for 
 communities of men — whole cities. Have 
 a look, for example, at the case of West- 
 port Landing, a valiant little town which 
 always was willing to pay the price of 
 success. 
 
 Before another summer rolls around 
 the town which once in contempt was 
 nicknamed "Westport Landing" will be 
 celebrating her birthday with a cake of a 
 hundred candles. Today she has the dis- 
 tinction of being the largest city in the 
 whole length of the Missouri Valley, or, 
 if you except only St. Louis, in all the 
 great plains country from the Mississippi 
 Hiver west to the Rocky Mountains. And 
 
 Page seven 
 
that she has attained such conspicuous 
 success in so short a time is all the more 
 remarkable because the settlement had to 
 battle, from the very beginning, against 
 a formidable series of obstacles. 
 
 In canoes and pirogues in the summer 
 of 1821, a little band of early day French 
 poilus paddled up the Big Muddy — a peril- 
 ous cruise of twenty days into the wilder- 
 ness — and established a fur trading out- 
 post on the banks of this turbulent river 
 a few miles below the mouth of what was 
 then known only as the "Kaw." (On the 
 maps the "Kaw" is now set down as the 
 "Kansas River," but it never has been 
 accepted locally as the proper name of 
 the stream.) The French pioneers built 
 a warehouse and a few log cabins. Then 
 they set to work to establish the settle- 
 ment's first reputation as a hustling cen- 
 ter for wholesale trade, jobbing and re- 
 tailing. The petite ville had a popula- 
 tion of only 31, but it did a volume of 
 business all out of proportion to its puny 
 
 Thus was a tradition set which has 
 been faithfully cherished even unto the 
 present day. By the census of 1920 the 
 community at the mouth of the Kaw num- 
 bers, as you may know, 324,410 on the 
 Missouri side of the state line, and 100,- 
 177 on the Kansas side. (Doubtless, by 
 this time, you have guessed that its pres- 
 ent name is "Kansas City.") Many other 
 
 Page eight 
 
American cities are ahead of it on the 
 census lists, but the community carries on 
 an amount of business all out of propor- 
 tion to its size, and in volume of bank 
 clearings ranks fifth in the entire United 
 States, right up next to New York, Chi- 
 cago, Boston and Philadelphia, like a ban- 
 tam soldier mixed into a squad of six- 
 footers. 
 
 Vision told Francois Chouteau and his 
 comrades that somewhere near the con- 
 fluence of these two great water high- 
 ways, one of them 3,000 miles long, a 
 great city might some day arise. These 
 valiant Frenchmen might even have 
 dreamed — who knows? — that the place 
 would become eventually what it is today 
 — the giant of the whole Missouri Valley. 
 
 The great treacherous beast of a river, 
 which the Indians called the "Big Muddy," 
 picked the location of Westport Landing 
 and afterward tried time and again to de- 
 stroy it. Chouteau and his voyageurs 
 chose this site as a strategic situation for 
 an outpost for fur trading — both with 
 the trappers of the Rocky Mountains and 
 with the Indians of the western plains^, 
 tributary to the Kaw valley. 
 
 Besides vision, this little band of pion- 
 eers had as an inheritance of their blood 
 a goodly store of courage — for they were 
 Frenchmen. Does this latter declaration 
 require to be supported? If so, it may 
 be recounted that only last month your 
 
 Page 7iine 
 
correspondent listened to Henry P. Davi- 
 son of the American Red Cross tell of 
 the plight and the bravery of present day 
 France. Her people, he related, stand in 
 dire need of a thousand and one necessi- 
 ties of life, goods which they must for- 
 bear to import to any great extent from 
 the New World on account of the fright- 
 fully high rate of exchange which we 
 charge them upon their money. These 
 Frenchmen, only yesterday our best pals, 
 with whom we fought shoulder to shoulder 
 in the deadliest war of modern times, 
 must go wanting. 
 
 "But one thing," Mr. Davison con 
 eluded, "they don't need to import from 
 anybody, and never did need to import — 
 and that is couragej" 
 
 Francois Chouteau and his poilus of a 
 hundred years ago carried to the mouth 
 of the Kaw a goodly stock of French 
 courage. The voyageurs stuck to their 
 guns in the lonely trading post despite 
 hostile Indians, pestilence and flood. 
 
 The treacherous, tawny, old river, a 
 lion when enraged, was their most for- 
 midable enemy. Barely four years after 
 they had established themselves on its 
 banks, a June flood swept away their 
 warehouse and half of the houses of the 
 settlement. With the same indomitable 
 "Kansas City Spirit" which an older city 
 showed in 1900, when on the eve of a na- 
 tional political convention the hall which 
 
 Page ten 
 
Kansas City had prepared for the meet- 
 ing burned swiftly to the ground, these 
 pioneers grimly set to rebuilding, bigger 
 and better. For by this time their con- 
 viction was deeper than ever that some- 
 where in the immediate neighborhood of 
 their settlement lay the site destined to 
 become the queen city of the western 
 plains. 
 
 Two rival claimants for this eminence 
 sprang up close by within the next two 
 years. 
 
 The first, founded in 1827, only six 
 years after the French pioneers had moor- 
 ed their canoes below the mouth of the 
 Kaw, chose for its seat the graceful hill- 
 tops ten miles eastward, and gloried in 
 the name of "Independence." 
 
 For thirty years or more, despite the 
 handicap of being situated three miles in- 
 land from the banks of the Missouri, the 
 fame of Independence far eclipsed that 
 of the more conveniently located French 
 settlement. 
 
 By 1831 Independence had captured 
 most of the trade that flowed from Mis- 
 souri River steamboats onto prairie 
 schooners and across the plains to the 
 great Southwest over the old Santa Fe 
 Trail. But the little French settlement 
 at the mouth of the Kaw stuck to its 
 knitting. It was sure it was right, and 
 it went ahead! 
 
 Page eleven 
 
The very loveliness of the country 
 around Independence contributed to defeat 
 this community's ambition to become the 
 West's "City of Destiny." Washington 
 Irving, visiting it in 1832, wrote enthus- 
 iastically of it to his sister: 
 
 "Yesterday I was out on a deer hunt 
 in the vicinity of this place, which led me 
 through some scenery that only wanted a 
 castle, or a gentleman's seat here and 
 there interspersed to have equalled some 
 of the most celebrated park scenery of 
 England." 
 
 It was this very loveliness that at- 
 tracted to Independence in the early 
 thirties an invasion of Mormons, seeking 
 a new El Dorado. Their arrival brought 
 on a bitter clash between Mormons and 
 Gentiles. The Gentiles at last, by force 
 of bloodshed and harsh legislation, won 
 an indisputable victory. 
 
 Despite this civil war. Independence 
 held its supremacy of the commerce of the 
 river until the early 'forties. Then an- 
 other rival, striving eagerly to become the 
 Port of the West, and ambitiously nam- 
 ing itself after the heart's desire "West- 
 port," began to menace Independence with 
 defeat. 
 
 Westport, like Independence, lay inland 
 three or four miles, as if she, too, feared 
 to choose a site close to the tawny river. 
 Westport used the docks of the old French 
 
 Page Hvelve 
 
fur trading settlement as the landing 
 place for her goods, and in derision she 
 nicknamed our heroine *'Westport Land- 
 ing." 
 
 All the little town on the levee an- 
 swered to this was: "We can stand it!" 
 The river settlement cast about for a 
 suitable name and decided officially to 
 
 The Missouri River levee, the site of "Westport 
 
 Landing," as it is today. Photo shows docks 
 
 of the barge line to St. Louis and 
 
 the new bridge. — Gushing. 
 
 style herself, simply as "Kansas." In 
 1839 the townsite was first surveyed and 
 the plots offered at public auction. They 
 sold under the hammer for the not too 
 staggering total sum of $4,220. 
 
 Again the river of destiny stepped in 
 and did something dramatic. It burst 
 over its banks in 1844 with the greatest 
 
 Page thirteen 
 
n 
 
 flood ever known in the Big Muddy's tur- 
 bulent history, carried off Monsieur Fran- 
 cois Chouteau's second fur warehouse, 
 and then, tearing madly on downstream, 
 swept away the docks and warehouses at 
 Wayne City, ten miles below, which serv- 
 ed as the landing place for steamboat 
 shipments to Independence. 
 
 Westport gained with this blow the final 
 supremacy over her downstream rival, In- 
 dependence. Preparations for the im- 
 pending war with Mexico were booming 
 local business, because the neighborhood 
 of the Kaw's mouth was the nearest port 
 to the southwestern border. Westport 
 was quick to seize the opportunity and 
 nail it down. 
 
 Destiny then smiled upon Westport for 
 as many years — a dozen or more, at least 
 — as she had smiled upon Independence. 
 For a few more years Independence strug- 
 gled gamely and desperately. She rebuilt 
 the Wayne City docks and warehouses and 
 showed further enterprise by construct- 
 ing what is reputed to be the first rail- 
 way ever laid down west of the Missis- 
 sippi — three and a half miles of wooden 
 track bound with steel bands. This ran 
 (or, rather ambled — for it was operated 
 by mule power) from Wayne City to In- 
 dependence Square; and it was opened in 
 time to bid for the traffic of gold seekers 
 in '49 pouring overland toward California. 
 Independence scored another technical 
 
 Page fourteen 
 
victory by being named in 1850 the east- 
 ern terminus of the West's first overland 
 mail route, a stage line 1,200 miles long, 
 to Salt Lake City. 
 
 But the jig was up and Westport gloat- 
 ed when in another year the railway had 
 to be abandoned. The tricky old river 
 was forming a sandbar in front of the 
 Wayne City docks, and boats could no 
 longer land there. Westport was so jub- 
 ilant about the victory that she almost 
 forgot to laugh at "Westport Landing" 
 in 1850 for making bold to christen her- 
 self the "TOWN of Kansas," and the 
 very next year putting on further airs 
 with the title of "CITY of Kansas." 
 
 Another big rush of business came along 
 in 1854 when the government threw open 
 Kansas Territory to settlement. The 
 neighborhood of the Kaw's mouth was 
 the gateway to the homeseekers, pouring 
 in by the hundreds on Missouri River 
 steamboats from the east. 
 
 The decade, 1850-1860, became the 
 "golden era" of Missouri River steam- 
 boating. At the peak of the traffic, in 
 1857, the little "City of Kansas" counted 
 729 boats arrive and depart from her 
 levee. 
 
 About this time a prophet arose in the 
 land. His name was William Gilpin. In 
 1855, while Westport was yet the favorite 
 of Destiny in the west, Gilpin drew a map 
 
 Page fifteen 
 

 C <D 
 
 .2Z 
 
 25 ^ 
 
 Pagre sixteen 
 
of a great city of the future which he. 
 called "Centropolis," because — just as the 
 Secretary of the local Chamber of Com- 
 merce now points out — the site is central 
 enough to be described as "the Heart of 
 America." 
 
 This map of Gilpin's, at first glance, 
 could easily be mistaken for a recent plat 
 of Kansas City, Mo., for it includes with- 
 in its limits both Westport and Independ- 
 ence. True to prophecy, Westport was 
 swallowed up by Kansas City long ago 
 (1889), and the absorption of Independ- 
 ence is also a matter of fact so far as 
 the eye can discern. Independence dies 
 hard, and feels a sentimental reluctance 
 to confess to the reality of the situation 
 by signing on the dotted line. 
 
 Apropos of which, we are reminded of 
 Roy Bean, a Wayne City and Independ- 
 ence booster who died the hardest. He 
 always refused even to have a look at 
 Kansas City. As late as the early 'nine- 
 ties some of his friends described to him 
 the wonders of the big modern city a few 
 miles up the river, its skyscrapers and 
 the roar of its traffic, the scores of miles 
 of residence streets, the throngs of people 
 and the bright lights and the cable cars 
 climbing like flies, up the steep inclines 
 of its hills. They pleaded with him — 
 wouldn't he go? No, he wouldn't. Perish 
 the idea! With a wave of his hand he 
 dismissed it: 
 
 Page seventeen 
 
''Kansas City!" he snorted. "Kansas 
 City is too far from Wayne City ever to 
 amount to much!" 
 
 This may serve to give a hint of why 
 the Prophet Gilpin, previously mentioned, 
 v/as accorded small honor in his day for 
 his map of "Centropolis." No wonder — 
 inasmuch as the "City of Kansas" at the 
 time was only a few blocks of unpreten- 
 tious business buildings along the levee 
 and a few unlovely wooden residences 
 perched above it on high clay banks in 
 the rear. With a population in all, by 
 the census of 1885, of 478! 
 
 But a great deal was stirring along the 
 levee. In two more years the population 
 had increased to 3,224 and even Westport 
 was jarred loose from her haughty con- 
 tempt. Another two years and the "City 
 
 Main Street, in the retail snopping district -Gushing. 
 
 Page eighteen 
 
of Kansas" counted 4,418. It had graded 
 a canon through the clay banks for a 
 highway known as ''Main Street," had 
 widened the levee and was swiftly living 
 down the nickname of "Westport Land- 
 ing." The city's former enemy had be- 
 come a genial friend; the old river was 
 now working overtime in a good cause. 
 
 Then another staggering blow — the 
 Civil War. Kansas City lay on the south 
 side of the river and so close to the fight- 
 ing waged along an open flank that her 
 situation might be compared to that of a 
 French village in Alsace. Battles were 
 fought in both Independence and Westport 
 when Confederate forces attempted to 
 break througli and flank Grant's army 
 from the West. The Battle of Westport, 
 ending after three days in a clear victory 
 for the Union, was as important an en- 
 gagement as anything that happened west 
 of the Mississippi River. Though Kansas 
 City never was actually invaded, the 
 fighting in her back yard was so noisy 
 and uncomfortably close that business 
 was nearly paralyzed, as in Paris when 
 the Big Berthas were popping. The popu- 
 lation dropped off from 7,180 to 4,000 in 
 the first year of the war; then kept on 
 slowly dwindling until at the close of the 
 conflict the census showed barely 3,500. 
 
 Men with commercial vision had not 
 been lacking in the "City of Kansas" 
 when the war began. They had forseen 
 
 Page nineteen 
 
that the golden age of steamboating was 
 nearing an end, and that the railway was 
 the coming weapon of commercial supre- 
 macy. Visioning this, they had energeti- 
 cally boosted for railways. A contract 
 had been let early in 1860 to build a con- 
 nection from Kansas City to Cameron (45 
 miles north) and $200,000 had been spent 
 upon the effort to link up here, ahead of 
 all rivals, with a railway that was push- 
 ing westward across Missouri from Mark 
 Twain's old town of Hannibal. The rival 
 most feared was Fort Leavenworth, twen- 
 ty-five miles up river and also not more 
 than forty-five miles distant from Cam- 
 eron Junction. 
 
 When peace was signed in 1865, the 
 hopeful "City of Kansas" had only 3,500 
 population to compare with 15,000 in 
 Leavenworth, for the garrison town up 
 the river, protected with a big fort and 
 safely removed from the battle area, had 
 profited greatly during the war upon the 
 misfortunes of her rival. 
 
 The "City of Kansas" had to make a 
 new start in life, like a convalescent just 
 out of the hospital, and all her hope for 
 success lay centered in railways. Work 
 begun in '63 had been pressed under great 
 difficulties upon a line from Kansas City 
 (now the Union Pacific) forty miles up 
 the Kaw Valley to Lawrence, Kans., and 
 in '64 the first passenger train steamed 
 into the western terminus. Another train, 
 
 Page Hventy 
 
the same year, ran a picnic excursion 
 down a little piece of track which hope- 
 fully extended itself ten or twelve miles 
 in the direction of St. Louis, ending at 
 Little Blue. 
 
 But that was all, and not bright with 
 promise, for meanwhile the settlement at 
 the Kaw's mouth was threatened with be- 
 ing cut off like a lost battalion from the 
 line of supplies and communications to the 
 north, open from Cameron to Hannibal 
 and connecting there, over the Mississippi, 
 with the populous East. 
 
 To make matters worse, the Missouri 
 River must be bridged before the "City 
 of Kansas" could hope to handle freight 
 at competitive rates. In the eyes of our 
 lost battalion the river was a giant moat, 
 an obstacle more formidable to cross than 
 the miles of barbed wire and concrete 
 trenches of a Hindenburg Line. 
 
 But again you must reckon upon the 
 old Kansas City Spirit. Little as the 
 place was at the time, as compared with 
 Leavenworth, poor in purse and war- 
 stricken, she had the same old vision, the 
 same old courage. Though Leavenworth 
 was already boasting that her contract to 
 become the terminus of the Hannibal rail- 
 way was "let and cinched," the "City of 
 Kansas" would not give up the fight. 
 
 A delegation of business men from the 
 Kaw's mouth, financed by popular sub- 
 
 Page twenty-one 
 
scription, was dispatched to hunt down 
 the Eastern magnate who, as president 
 of the Michigan Central, the Chicago, 
 Burlington & Quincy, the Hannibal & St. 
 Joseph and heaven knows how many other 
 railroads all at once, was chief juggler 
 of the destinies of the score of young 
 cities in the Missouri Valley. 
 
 This flying squadron, refusing to be- 
 lieve that all was lost, kidnapped the 
 magnate to the Kaw's mouth, and there 
 harangued and wheedled and boasted and 
 made glorious prophecies until he granted 
 a delay upon the proceedings favoring 
 Leavenworth. And in the end the mag- 
 nate put his O. K, on the Kansas City 
 plan, including even a bridge across the 
 river. Immediately work was rushed to 
 complete the connection from Harlem, 
 on the north bank of the river from 
 Kansas City, to the junction at Cameron. 
 
 And now behold how, heartened with 
 this victory, little spokes of steel with 
 ''nary terminus at 'ary end," reached 
 out from a radius near the Kaw's mouth, 
 east and west, north and south, eagerly 
 seeking connection with the outside 
 world. Over a line from St. Louis, com- 
 peting with the Hannibal road, chugged 
 in the first passenger train from the 
 East, "beating out" the northern con- 
 nection via Cameron, which was not 
 thrown open to traffic until November, 
 '67. Meanwhile the Union Pacific was 
 
 Page ftventy-Hvo 
 
pushing feverishly westward, until in '68 
 a train from Kansas City shrieked its 
 way across the plains, stampeding In- 
 dians and herds of buffalo, to a destina- 
 tion in Denver. Another year and the 
 "City of Kansas" celebrated, on the eve 
 of the Fourth of July the opening of the 
 "Hannibal Bridge" across the Missouri 
 River — a free outlet to the North. 
 
 Old settlers say that this bridge 
 "made" Kansas City. The occasion was 
 fittingly celebrated with speeches and a 
 balloon ascension, followed by fifty years 
 of gloating over the defeat administered 
 to Leavenworth. 
 
 A birdssye view of part of Kansas City's stockyards 
 
 and packing district, cattle pens and chutes 
 
 in the foreground. — Gushing. 
 
 By this time Kansas City had a stock 
 yards and a packing house; the boom 
 
 Page twenty-three 
 
Page twenty-four 
 
that had laid down to die in 1860 had 
 been gloriously revived; and in the five 
 years from the close of the war until 
 1870 the population had swollen from 
 3,500 to 32,260. For though the river 
 trade was languishing, the place now 
 boasted of no less than seven railways. 
 
 It was so far back as this that the 
 first whisperings of another voice now 
 vibrant in Kansas City were heard — the 
 urge to civic betterment. In the years 
 from '65 to '74 the little city dug down 
 into her purse for $1,500,000 for street 
 improvements. She had set herself to 
 the task of "pulling the town out of the 
 mud." 
 
 A few years more and this seemingly 
 hopeless job was given a new stimulus 
 by a man named Nelson, who dropped in 
 from Ft. Wayne, Ind., to have a look at 
 the place for business opportunities. His 
 idea was to start a newspaper, and his 
 choice lay between this town, Brooklyn 
 and St. Louis. 
 
 As a man who dearly loved to mix into 
 a fight, particularly if the scrap was not 
 a private one but anybody's, turbulent 
 Kansas City (the real metropolis of 
 bleeding Kansas, though most of the town 
 is unfortunately located on the wrong 
 side of the state line) was an easy win- 
 ner of his affections. Here, in 1880, he 
 established an evening newspaper called 
 
 Page tiventy-five 
 
*'The Star," which immediately was nick- 
 named the "Twilight Twinkler." The 
 first of many fights into which he mixed 
 was the struggle to pull Kansas City out 
 of the mud. He and the men he enlisted 
 with him made notable progress. For he 
 had vision and courage, of which are 
 compounded the Spirit of the place. 
 
 It is now about time in our epic for 
 the community to receive another stag- 
 gering wallop, for the "City of Kansas" 
 is putting on airs again, has absorbed 
 her old rival, Westport, in 1889, and has 
 vaingloriously taken out a new city char- 
 ter changing the official name of the 
 place to "Kansas City." The population, 
 meanwhile, has jumped from 55,785 in 
 1880 to 132,716 in 1890. 
 
 So, true to dramatic form, here comes 
 the wallop when a frenzied real estate 
 boom falls through. Again the referee 
 begins to count over the prostrate form, 
 —one — two — three — four — five years. But 
 along about this time, dizzy but game as 
 ever, Kansas City wobbles to her feet 
 again, fighting, and shouts a strange new 
 battle slogan. Nothing about railways, 
 nothing about packing houses, nothing 
 about any kind of business whatsoever in 
 it. This is how it ran: "Make Kansas 
 City a good place to live in!" 
 
 This in the blackest hour of the after- 
 the-boom reconstruction era, at a time 
 
 Page twenty -six 
 
when Kansas City had not a single park 
 or boulevard, and half of the town was 
 placarded with signs of "For Sale" or 
 ''For Rent." That famous Spirit again! 
 Kansas City managed somehow to rally 
 to this new slogan. It sounded a little 
 like mockery at first, but it really had 
 vision and courage in it if you took the 
 idea the right way. 
 
 A hillsid? shantytown once cluim' lo the sides of this 
 cliff — now made into a much admired part of 
 Kansas City's famous park and boulevard sys- 
 tem. (Kers:y Coates Terrace). — Gushing. 
 
 Another odd thing happened along 
 about this time which probably has long 
 since been forgotten. The ancient Prophet 
 Gilpin, who had lived to see his visionary 
 map, drawn way back in 1855, become the 
 land in '92 urging boldness to the faint 
 of heart and proclaiming: "The West 
 will rule the American continent!" The 
 
 Page tiventy-seven 
 
loud grumbles that we hear these days in 
 certain sections of the East against "im- 
 posing Middle Western mortality upon 
 the entire nation," may be taken, if you 
 like, as tributes to this prophet's fore- 
 sight. And here a quotation from Gover- 
 nor Edwards of New Jersey might be par- 
 ticularly apropos! 
 
 But lest we stray from our epic, it 
 should next be recorded that Kansas City, 
 while yet convalescent from the shock of 
 the collapse of the real estate boom, 
 plunged whole-heartedly into the work of 
 self-beautif ication ; and, from zero to 
 start with in 1889, could boast of nearly 
 twelve miles of bouvelards and 1,691 acres 
 of parks before 1900. 
 
 The transformations accomplished were 
 sometimes really startling in their swift- 
 ness. Raiders in the employ of the Park 
 Board would descend upon a Shantytown 
 or a Goatville-in-the-Hollow and almost 
 overnight turn the place into a beauty 
 spot. Thus the suggestion of mockery be- 
 gan to vanish from the slogan, "Make 
 Kansas City a good place to live in." 
 Perhaps this is as good a place as any to 
 observe again that the old axiom appears 
 to hold true of groups of men (whole com- 
 munities and cities) as it does of indi- 
 viduals: '^Anyone can succeed if he only 
 will pay the price." Kansas City paid the 
 price for her parks and boulevards; paid 
 till she groaned. She got behind a "city 
 
 Page tiveiity-eight 
 
plan," though there was no such high- 
 sounding name for the idea in those days, 
 and "boosted it over the top" to victory. 
 
 In a further valiant effort to get her- 
 self talked about as a successful city, 
 Kansas City built by popular subscrip- 
 tion in 1899 (for she was always willing 
 to "pay the price!") a big Convention 
 Hall, and invited the Democrats to hold in 
 it their impending national pow-wow. On 
 Washington's Birthday of that year, Sousa 
 waved his baton and boom-ta-ta-da ! the 
 music of a big brass band shook the lofty 
 rafters in dedication. Nearly every man, 
 woman and child in town, from a popula- 
 tion numbering now 164,745, had given a 
 dollar or more to help build this darling 
 of the city's heart. So it was a grand 
 and glorious occasion. 
 
 But another blow impended, A youth 
 of twenty years ago vividly recalls the 
 afternoon of April 4, 1900, when warned 
 by a mammoth pillar of smoke from the 
 west side of town and a thrilling din of 
 fire bells, he ran with hundreds of other 
 breathless citizens, young and old, to 
 Thirteenth and Central Streets, and there 
 stood gasping, stunned. Convention Hall, 
 from basement to rooftree, was a mass of 
 flames. 
 
 For a count of several seconds Kansas 
 City was again knocked out — then up from 
 the mat she bounced, once more grimly 
 
 Page twenty-nine 
 
Page thirty 
 
fighting. While the fire was raging hot- 
 test and iron beams were wilting in the 
 furnace like wires of a crushed bird cage, 
 solicitors began to raise another popular 
 subscription, which before sundown had 
 mounted to $20,000. A new hall must be 
 ready for the convention in ninety days! 
 
 The "wise ones" said it couldn't be done. 
 Money enough would be available, for the 
 insurance companies, like good sports, paid 
 up promptly and without a whimper. But 
 to gather again the thousand and one ma- 
 terials necessary, to assemble them and 
 construct such a huge building in only 
 ninety days was deemed quite out of the 
 question. First of all, the steel could not 
 be delivered in time. After that, a thou- 
 sand other shipments might be delayed in 
 transit — lack of any one of which on the 
 precise moment when it was needed would 
 tie up the whole works * * * 
 
 It couldn't be done! 
 
 But it WAS done. 
 
 In fourteen days the site was cleared 
 Then the first shipment of building ma- 
 terials began to arrive. Scouts from Kan- 
 sas City had scattered far and wide to 
 trace these shipments. Men from Kansas 
 City had settled themselves like deter- 
 mined bill collectors on the front door- 
 steps of steel mills and brick kilns and 
 lumber yards, camping there and eternal- 
 ly pestering until the goods they sought 
 
 Page thirty -one 
 
were delivered to them in person and load- 
 ed on freight cars. From the source of 
 every shipment to Kansas City's own back 
 yard, these men ate and slept in the cars; 
 then they rode the wagons that delivered 
 the goods at the site of Convention Hall. 
 And here relays of steel workers, masons 
 and carpenters and painters worked day 
 and night, rebuilding a structure "bigger 
 and better." 
 
 It couldn't be done — but it was. On 
 July 4, 1900, the last nail was driven 
 home, and to the minute of their schedule 
 the Democrats met in Kansas City and 
 hopefully but rashly sent William Jen- 
 nings Bryan to bat for his second strike- 
 out. 
 
 Those who have dwelt in Kansas City 
 in the twenty years since know what a 
 good place Kansas City has become to live 
 in; know that there has been no let-up 
 in the growth of parks and boulevards 
 and beautiful residence districts; know 
 that the city's trade has kept on extend- 
 ing as swiftly as ever; and that the popu- 
 lation has swollen from 248,381 in 1910 to 
 324,410 in 1920. 
 
 Doubtless, Kansas City, like every other 
 town, has her blind spot, which is more 
 apparent to a traveler than to the perma- 
 nent resident. To my mind, that spot in 
 Kansas City is the downtown section. 
 First of all, it ought to be swept clean 
 with an old-fashioned police dragnet. Af- 
 
 Page thirty-two 
 
THE PAST AND THE PRESENT, on this block is 
 one of the oldest and one of the newest buildings 
 in Kansas City. At Tenth Street and Grand Ave. 
 arises the frame of the new Federal Bank Build- 
 ing. The oldest church building still in church use 
 in Kansas City is the Catholic church of St. Peter 
 and St. Paul, southwest corner of Ninth and 
 McGee Streets. -Sarvent. 
 
 Page thirty-three 
 
Page thirty-four 
 
ter having covered some 12,000 miles in 
 the United States this year, your corre- 
 spondent can testify that the "wide open 
 town" is now generally passe in America 
 and creates an unflattering impression up- 
 on the casual visitor. 
 
 Next, before anyone starts to celebrate 
 the city's hundredth birthday, not a min- 
 ute more should be lost in rushing work 
 upon some new hotels, several of them — 
 for Kansas City is losing thousands upon 
 thousands of dollars these days (which 
 are days of heavy travel) by not being in 
 a position, as regards hotel accommoda- 
 tions to invite a heavier tourist trade. 
 The throngs from the North and the East 
 who pour through the Union Station to 
 California in the winter, and who pass 
 through from the South to the North in 
 summertime, should be — and easily could 
 be — induced by advertising to stop over in 
 Kansas City for a few days instead of, as 
 at present, for only a few hours. The 
 heads of the Chamber of Commerce know 
 this. (At least, one representative with 
 whom I talked on that recent visit was 
 frank to confess it.) 
 
 Finally, a plaza somewhere within 
 striking distance of the retail shopping 
 district ought to be cleared to give down- 
 town a breathing space. You who have 
 made Kansas City a good place to live 
 in should now turn to and make it good 
 to work in. Take it from one who under- 
 
 Page thirty-five 
 
Page thirty-six 
 
stands Kansas City well enough to speak 
 frankly — the downtown section does not 
 appear to have improved much in attrac- 
 tiveness in the past ten years. It has not 
 so much as built new office buildings com- 
 mensurate with the population growth and 
 the pressing demands for more elbow 
 room for hard-driven workers. The resi- 
 dence districts have extended and been 
 beautified in that space of time almost be- 
 yond belief (the Country Club District, 
 in particular, deserves to be a show place 
 of national fame) — but "downtown" looks 
 pretty much the same. 
 
 I wonder why? Is it because that slo- 
 gan about making Kansas City a good 
 place to live in diverts the community's 
 best thought and effort to outlying parks 
 and boulevards and homes, while the heart 
 of the city goes on beating to the same old 
 tune? 
 
 An old friend's parting word to his old 
 home town is: "Start something down- 
 town. Make Kansas City a good 'place to 
 ivork in!" 
 
 Who said, "It can't be done?" 
 
 I seem to have heard those words be- 
 fore, and a Spirit answered them. 
 
 But no more of this. The important 
 thing is to repeat that Kansas City is en- 
 titled to a glorious birthday party in 1921. 
 
 Page thirty-seven 
 
Page thirty-eight 
 
THE SCOUT, Cyrus Eallin's statue, bought by pub- 
 lic subscription. It stands dominant on a hill in 
 Penn Valley Park, southwest of the Memorial 
 site. — Sarvent. 
 
 Page thirty -7iine 
 
Page for 
 
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