Kansas City

Kansas City two adjacent cities of the same name, one (1990 pop. 149,767), seat of Wyandotte co., NE Kansas (inc. 1859), the other (1990 pop. 435,146), Clay, Jackson, and Platte counties, NW Mo. (inc. 1850). They are at the junction of the Missouri and Kansas (or Kaw) rivers and together form a large commercial, industrial, and cultural center. They are a port of entry, the focus of many transportation lines, with markets for wheat, hay, poultry, and seed. Both cities have meat, dairy, and agricultural processing and packaging plants. Among the chief manufactures of the metropolitan area are auto bodies, chemicals, petroleum and paper products, machinery, and transportation equipment. There are also printing and publishing companies. During the 1970s and 80s the outlying towns and cities that comprise Kansas City's suburban area developed their own industries, businesses, and corporate bases for various companies. As a result, the population of the two adjacent cities declined, and nearby suburban communities and housing developments grew. The area was the starting point of many Western expeditions; the Santa Fe and Oregon trails passed through there. Several historic settlements of the early 19th cent. (including Westport) have become full-fledged cities. Kansas City, Kans., is the seat of two theological seminaries, the Univ. of Kansas Medical Center, and a state school for the blind (est. 1868). It has an agricultural hall of fame and several museums, and the Huron Indian cemetery is of interest. Kansas City, Mo., is the site of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and Design. There are numerous parks and public spaces filled with fountains and sculptures. The Country Club Plaza (finished in 1922) is one of the first U.S. shopping malls, and the renovated Union Station contains a science museum and other attractions. Among its educational institutions are the Univ. of Missouri-Kansas City, Avila College, Park College, Rockhurst College, Kansas City Art Institute, a college of osteopathy and surgery, a music conservatory, and theological schools. The city has a symphony orchestra and several theaters. The Kansas City Star was founded (1880) by William Rockhill Nelson and headed by him until 1915. The Kansas City Royals (baseball) and the Kansas City Chiefs (football) are the major sports teams, and the Kansas Speedway and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum are located here. Kansas City has long been noted for its music, particularly jazz and swing, popular there since the 1930s. Kansas City holds various jazz and blues festivals and is home to a jazz museum.

Bibliography: See W. D. Grant, The Romantic Past of the Kansas City Region (1987).

Kansas City City in ne Kansas, USA, at the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri rivers, adjacent to Kansas City, Missouri. Part of a Native American reservation, it was acquired by Wyandotte Native Americans in 1843 and sold to the US government in 1855. The modern city was established in 1886. Industries: livestock, motor vehicles, metal products, chemicals. Pop. (2000) 146,866.

Kansas City. The Missouri settlement that by the 1850s would be called Kansas City arose in the 1820s as a fur trading center at the junction of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers. By the 1830s hemp farming and the outfitting of settlers migrating west on the Santa Fe Trail had replaced the fur trade as the region's major cash sources.

Kansas Territory opened to settlement in 1854, and Kansas City grew from a few hundred residents to over 4,000 in 1860. The Civil War in the region was largely a guerrilla conflict, resulting in rural depopulation and economic stagnation. After the war, railroads became the major concern. Local promoters persuaded the Hannibal & St. Joseph railroad to build a bridge across the Missouri River at Kansas City. Together with the Missouri Pacific connection to St. Louis (1865) and the Kansas Pacific connection to Abilene (1867), this made Kansas City a major transfer point and railroad hub for the Middle West. Stockyards, meatpacking, and related businesses located across the State line in Kansas processed livestock from western Missouri, Kansas, and the Southwest. Wholesaling companies made Kansas City the economic center for the Southwest in the later nineteenth century.

Kansas City, Missouri, reached a population of 132,000 by 1890 and 400,000 by 1930. Kansas City, Kansas meanwhile, grew from several small towns into a city of 50,000 by 1900 and over 100,000 by 1920. Trade, transportation, and related services such as conventions and hotels were the central businesses into the 1920s. The Kansas City metropolitan region was only secondarily a manufacturing center. Though sometimes portrayed as a “cow town,” Kansas City contained no stockyards or meatpacking facilities after 1990.

From the mid‐1920s to 1939 (when he went to prison for income‐tax evasion), Kansas City politics was controlled by Democratic boss Thomas Pendergast (1872–1945), whose best‐known protégé was the future president Harry S. Truman. Under Pendergast the city gained a reputation for lax law enforcement and prostitution.

By 1950 approximately 1 million persons lived in the Kansas City metropolitan area. Downtown Kansas City, Missouri, retained its position as the financial center, but suburban Johnson County, Kansas, contained over 400,000 residents and many business offices by 2000.

Metropolitan Kansas City hosts an American League baseball team, The Royals, and the National Football League's Chiefs. As the twentieth century ended, its economy was quite diversified with low unemployment. The 1.8 million residents were proud of the city's jazz heritage, including pianist and bandleader William (“Count”) Basie, and of the strong role of African Americans—15 percent of the metropolitan population—in developing the region's image. It was also a regional center for the federal government, the largest single employer.
See also Livestock Industry.

Bibliography

Shirl Kasper and and Rick Montgomery , Kansas City: An American Story, 1999.

William S. Worley