USA > Kansas > Wyandotte County > Kansas City > History of Kansas City illustrated in three decades : being a chronicle wherein is set forth the true account of the founding, rise, and present position occupied by Kansas City in municipal America > Part 7
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When Kansas City, by securing the Hannibal Bridge, brought to itself the great railways of the West, it opened the way for all that has followed. Business came to the city be- cause the city had made itself a business center. The business brought men to do the work. These men made a demand for homes and clothing and food and amusement and conveniences, and yet other men came to supply these. These in turn made new demands, and factories were established to supply them.
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KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI.
James F. Joy and his associates who built the bridge originally intended to locate it at Leavenworth, but the hostility of Leavenworth people drove them to Kansas City; had it not been for this, Leavenworth would have secured the bridge and kept her lead of Kansas City. This may have been true so far as concerned the immediate time, but the matter of grades would eventually have given Kansas City the same ad- vantage she now enjoys.
At the present writing, through trains leave Kansas City daily over thirty-seven different routes on the lines of fifteen different companies. Besides this, the city has two belt rail- way systems and a remarkable system of street railways, in- cluding several miles of elevated track. The Union Station of the city is not what would be expected of a town so important to so many great systems. The city fondly hopes to eclipse St. Louis in this respect some day, and the traveling public joins in the hope.
The railway companies with lines reaching Kansas City are the following: Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé; Chicago & Alton; Missouri Pacific; Wabash; Kansas City Southern; Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul; Chicago, Burlington & Quincy; Chicago Great Western; Kansas City, Ft. Scott & Memphis; Missouri, Kansas & Texas; Kansas City & Northern Connecting; Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific; St. Louis & San Francisco; St. Joseph & Grand Island; and Union Pacific. This enumeration takes no account of the trolley lines extend- ing in various directions to neighboring towns. Other railway lines are confidently expected in the near future.
THE NEW YORK LIFE BUILDING.
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KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI.
In about the year 1875 began what is known in Kansas City's history as the "boom." For ten years or more it was difficult to make any real-estate investment in the city that did not yield a profit-or offer to yield one. It is doubtful if any such carnival of real-estate speculation ever occurred any- where else in this country. The platted land about the city extended out and out until, if the lots had been well occupied, the city would have been almost as large as London. Prices went up and up. Every profit made the speculators bolder and this boldness stiffened prices. Year after year this reciprocal stimulation of the real-estate market was kept up and the ul- timate victims multiplied accordingly. The end came and values fell with a crash. Scarcely a man escaped. Banks broke and thousands who had thought themselves rich were proved to be bankrupt or permanently crippled. The awaken- ing was a frightful one and for a long time no place in the country presented a more melancholy aspect. Disappointment, chagrin, and despair were written on the faces of so many that no observer could avoid a most profound feeling of sadness. But the bad dream passed and courage returned to those who survived the wreck, and at this time little remains to tell the tale of the great debauch except an unusual proportion of va- cant lots in the business part of the city. In the long run this may be a good thing, as it will likely influence the erection of ampler buildings with larger ground space and not so much invasion of the upper air.
It cannot be denied that Kansas City's prosperity rests on things material and unpoetic. Many other cities are more happily situated in this respect. Washington feeds on the
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KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI.
manna of Government disbursements; New York grows great and hourly greater on the voluntary support of a worshipful nation, whose people rush there to spend their money as soon as they get enough to make the trip. Paris, the world's pet, re- news her youth on the angel food provided by tourists of all nations. But Kansas City has had and has to "work for a living." Her dependence is on the sweat of her brow. She is surrounded by an ocean of fat land studded with mines and garnished with forests-both of fabulous extent and value. From the wheat-laden plains of the far North to the cotton- covered leagues of the South, there is scarcely an acre that is not fruitful beyond any like area elsewhere in the world. All the people of the earth could be fed from the land within a circle of a thousand-mile radius around Kansas City. Not only could they be fed, but all their other necessities could be supplied. Iron, oil, lumber, gold, silver, coal, salt -- everything which men must use, or may well use, comes out of this magic circle of which Kansas City is the center. Thus it is not strange that we see wonderful figures made by Kansas City's business institutions. Last year (1899) in her packing- houses 2,646,073 swine ran down a steep place into hot water. Nearly a million head of cattle rendered unto the packers the things that are the packers'. The Stock Yards handled over 6,000,000 head of live stock, worth $121,706,632. Three hundred and fifty thousand barrels of flour were turned out of her millls. The horse and mule merchants handled 31,677 horses and mules. She received bushels of grain as follows: wheat, 20,341,100; corn, 8,682,750; oats, 2,388,000; rye, 183,300; barley, 17,600. Kansas City sells more agricul-
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KANSAS CITY PUBLIC LIBRARY.
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KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI.
tural implements than any other town; she has the largest horse and mule stables in the world and the largest live-stock market in the Union except Chicago. She is second to Chicago only as a railroad center. Last year her bank clearings were $648,270,711, and on December 2d of last year her bank de- posits were $49,018,130. Her wholesale business amounted to $225,000,000.
The unexampled roughness of the early Kansas City has been noted. The day of decoration in time arrived. Streets were well paved. Unsightly bluffs were dumped into hideous gulches. Palaces were built. Engineers and gardeners scat- tered gentle slopes and pleasing curves in liberal profusion. Trees and flowers gladden the eye, and blue-grass carpeted the hills. Then the park idea took possession of the people, and a park system really entitled to be called magnificent was brought into existence. Nearly two thousand acres of well- chosen and well-distributed park land is justly the pride of the people. The roughest part of the area is the steep bluff-side which overlooks the Union Station. It is now covered with squatters' cabins and is as unlovely as neglect and disfiguration can make it. Soon it will blossom as the rose, and furnish a sweet retreat from the dust and heat of the great yards below. A part of the park system will overlook the Kansas Valley, a part the Missouri Valley, and other parts will be in the middle and on the circumference of the city. From the beautiful Country Club on the south to the stately bluffs overlooking the Misscuri Valley on the north, there will be a chain of charming parks and boulevards.
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KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI.
The schools of Kansas City are likewise her pride and joy. In 1899 their running expenses amounted to $525,971.03. The buildings are for the most part modern, and the methods of instruction are modeled after the standard systems of the educational world. Her High School and her Manual Training School prepare pupils for direct admission to the State Univer- sities of Missouri and Kansas. The hospitals of Kansas City are generous in capacity and are conducted admirably. The leading newspapers are the Journal and the Times, morning papers, and the Star and the World, evening papers. The Journal is Republican in politics, the Times Democratic, and the evening papers are independent. No city in the Union has enjoyed a higher class of daily newspapers from a very early day than Kansas City. To their persistent public energy is largely due the creation of the park system, the building and the rebuilding of Convention Hall, the fine city library, and a hundred other public improvements. The theaters and hotels are in advance of those of any other city of like size in the country, and those best informed had no fear of failure in the entertainment of the great company that -assembled in July, 1900, for the nomination of Democratic candidates for President and Vice-President of the United States.
The great hall in which the Democratic National Convention was held has just been reconstructed. It was originally built less than two years ago by popular subscription, and was de- stroyed by fire in April, 1900. Before the fire had been sub- dued a new subscription was started, and the whole structure has been built anew. It will hold 22,500 people, and is said
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by critics to be the most perfect building of its kind in the United States-if not in the world. The new building has been made almost fire-proof.
What is to be the future of Kansas City? The answer is not to be read in the stars, but in the broad acres of the empire surrounding her. If fertility of soil and healthfulness of climate mean multiplication of people, and if multiplication of people means a great central city, then Kansas City-both Kansas Cities-cannot help growing to a size and an importance which will make their present attainments seem insignificant. The whole West believes this is to happen.
CHAPTER XV.
The Story of Population .- Interesting Comparisons with Other Large Cities in Point of Increase and Size.
It has been noted that the "boom" was, in the end, scarcely more an attraction than a detraction to the real welfare and prosperity of Kansas City. The work of rehabilitation was rapid and complete, and to-day, in 1900, hardly a scar remains over even the deepest part of the wound. The growth of the city during the last years of the century has been unparalleled in municipal history. The story is best told by the population record. From the three hundred, all told, of 1849, there has been a wonderful increase to nearly that many thousand. The record is:
Population, Kansas City, Missouri.
Population, Kansas City, Kansas.
1849.
300
1860.
4,418
1865
3,500
1,100
1870
32,263
2,940
1880
55,785
6,149
1885
124,474
12,500
1890
132,416
38,170
1895
165,000
42,000
1899
214,000
55,000
The almost universal interest and pride envinced in the mere numercial expansion of our leading centers of population were emphasized by the eagerness with which the bulletins of the twelfth census relating to the chief cities were watched for
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MISSOURI VALLEY, LOOKING EAST FROM SCARRITT POINT.
115
KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI.
by the public. This pride in the growth of towns, however, is not confined to the universal Yankee nation, but is a singular manifestation among intelligent people of all civilized nations. With us a natural outgrowth of this ambition to "outsize" the other town, which engenders bitter rivalries, is the tendency to constantly exaggerate the population figures in "off years" be- tween the census-taking dates, punished by the consequent chagrin which in nearly all cases follows the publication of the actual figures as fixed by the official authority. There have been some disappointments in 1900, but on the whole the returns are about what might have been expected, and the showing of most of the towns is a fair one.
The Census Bureau has issued bulletins showing the ag- gregate population of nearly all the towns having 100,000 people and upwards, and for all the largest cities. Here is the list up to date, in the order of population, with the figures for the two preceding enumerations, added for purposes of comparison and analyzation :
City.
Twelfth Census, 1900.
Eleventh Census, 1890.
Tenth Census, 1880.
Greater New York
3,437,202
2,506,591
1,918,794
New York proper.
1,850,093
1,515,301
1,206,299
Chicago.
1,698,575
1,099,850
503,185
Philadelphia
1,293,697
1,046,964
847,170
Brooklyn
1,166,582
806,343
566,663
St. Louis
575,238
451,770
350,518
Boston
560,892
448,477
362,839
Baltimore.
508,957
434,439
332,313
Cleveland.
381,768
261,353
160,146
Buffalo
352,219
255,664
155,134
San Francisco
342,782
298,997
233,559
Cincinnati
325,902
296,908
255,139
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KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI.
City.
Twelfth Census, 1900.
Eleventh Census, 1890
Tenth Census, 1880.
Pittsburg . .
321,616
238,617
156,589
New Orleans
287,104
242,039
216,090
Milwaukee
285,315
204,468
115,587
Washington
278,718
230,392
177,624
Newark
246,070
181,830
136,508
Jersey City
206,433
163,003
120,722
Louisville
204,731
161,129
123,758
Minneapolis.
202,718
164,738
46,887
Providence
175,597
132,146
104,857
Indianapolis
169,164
105,436
75,056
Kansas City
163,752
132,716
55,785
St. Paul. .
163,632
133,156
41,473
Rochester.
162,435
133,896
89,366
Denver
133,859
105,713
35,629
Toledo
131,822
81,434
50,137
Allegheny City.
129,896
105,287
78,682
Columbus
125,560
88,150
51,647
Paterson.
105,171
78,347
51,031
Omaha
102,555
140,452
30,518
Some of these cities would make a still better comparative showing in aggregate population but for their misfortune of be- ing divided into two or more municipalities by geographical lines. This is particularly the case with the Greater New York, although that evil has already been partially cured by taking in Brooklyn, etc.
Minneapolis and St. Paul are practically one city, despite their differential names. So are Pittsburg and Allegheny, St. Louis and East St. Louis, Kansas City, Mo., and Kansas City, Kas., Omaha and Council Bluffs. New Orleans should be credited with a considerable population on the west bank of the Mississippi River. Doubtless there are others which suffer from this fault even more than some of those named. If
THE BATTLEFIELD OF WESTPORT.
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KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI.
several such municipalities were consolidated under one name, here would be the approximate result :
Greater New York 4,002,202
Boston, Cambridge, Chelsea, etc. 800,000
St. Louis, East St. Louis 625,000
Pittsburg, Allegheny City . 481,512
Cincinnati, Covington, Newport
410,000
Minneapolis, St. Paul. ... 366,350
Louisville, Jeffersonville
225,000
Kansas City, Mo., Kansas City, Kas
214,000
The consolidation of the returns in this manner is perfectly legitimate to the essential purpose of the census in this regard, which is to show where the great centers of population are. Kansas City, Mo., is separated from Kansas City, Kas., with 51,418 people, by an imaginary "State line." The intervention of the Hudson sets off 565,000 people from Greater New York. There is no sort of doubt that the consolidation of Brooklyn and the other adjoining cities with New York proper had a material and moral effect abroad, favorable not only to New York itself, but to the whole country. It is now known to foreigners that the United States contains the second city of the world in pop- ulation, soon to be the first, and perhaps the greatest center of commerce and wealth in the whole world.
Students of the subject, given much to speculate upon the movements of urban and suburban populations, will be particu- larly interested in the gross increase of these various cities as shown by the last three censuses. The following tabulation shows gains in their order by the new census, and also those of the two preceding censuses, from the official compendium :
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KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI.
Cities.
Increase 1890-1900.
Increase 1880-90.
Increase
1870-80.
Greater New York
930,201
587,797
439,749
Chicago ..
598,725
596,665
204,208
Brooklyn
360,239
239,680
170,564
New York proper
334,792
309,002
264,007
Philadelphia
.246,733
199,794
173,148
St. Louis
123,468
101,252
39,604
Cleveland.
120,415
101,207
38,900
Boston
112,415
85,638
112,313
Buffalo.
96,555
100,530
37,420
Pittsburg
82,999
82,228
70,313
Milwaukee
80,847
88,881
44,147
Baltimore
74,518
102,136
64,959
Newark
64,240
46,322
31,449
Indianapolis
63,728
30,380
26,812
Toledo
50,388
31,297
18,553
Washington.
48,326
52,768
38,094
New Orleans
45,065
25,949
25,672
San Francisco
43.785
60,038
84,486
Louisville .
43,602
37,371
23,005
Providence
43,451
27,289
35,953
Jersey City
43,430
42,281
38,176
Minneapolis.
37,980
117,851
33,821
Columbus
37,410
36,503
20,373
Kansas City
30,856
76,931
23,526
St. Paul
30,476
91,683
21,443
Cincinnati.
28,994
41,769
39,900
Rochester
28,539
44,530
26,900
Denver.
27,146
71,084
30,870
Paterson
26,824
27,316
17,452
Allegheny City
24,609
26,605
25,502
Omaha
*37,897
109,934
14,435
*Decrease.
The only town which is shown to have actually lost in popu- lation is Omaha. It makes the most notable falling off of any city in the entire list. But probably Omaha has made a gain, after all. In the strenuous contest for leadership between Omaha and Kansas City and some other Western towns in the decade between 1880 and 1890, it was charged by Omaha's
JACKSON COUNTY COURT HOUSE.
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KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI.
rivals that in order to "get there" she stuffed her census re- turns in 1890 in the most flagrant manner by copying hotel registers, etc., thereby more than doubling her population on paper. Of course, this was denied fiercely, but the figures bulletined this year, which are undoubtedly correct, apparently confirm the charge, because nobody of sense believes that, amidst the general progress all around her, Omaha alone has suffered from a decrease in population.
CHAPTER XVI.
Reasons for this Prosperity .- Volume of Wholesale Business .- Grain Elevators .- Building Permits .- Bank Deposits .- Clearings .- Kansas City Ranks Tenth in Volume of Business.
There is ample reason for the local prosperity which has come to Kansas City. This reason is that it is the natural metropolis of the richest territory in the world-in natural wealth. All Kansas, save the extreme northeastern portion; all Oklahoma, the Indian Territory, northern and western Arkansas, and a large part of Texas, western Missouri, and a part of Iowa are tributary to Kansas City. Cattle, corn, wheat, hogs, lead, zinc, lumber, products of a thousand kinds, find a market in Kansas City, and there make a demand for goods and manufactures in return. During the past year the volume of wholesale business was something over $200,000,000.
Grain elevators are centered here that have a capacity of 6,000,000 bushels, and the amount of grain handled during 1899 reached nearly 50,000,000 bushels.
The value of building permits granted during the year 1899 aggregated $4,160,700, or over $1,000,000 in excess of the preceding year.
The amount of bank deposits, at the close of the century, was hardly less noticeable in point of increase. The figures were considerably over $50,000,000. Clearing-house reports have always been considered a criterion of trade conditions.
GLADSTONE BOULEVARD, ON THE WAY TO SCARRITT POINT.
121
KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI.
Upon the record of the Kansas City clearing-house the people of the city may justly rely as an infallible index to that mate- rial prosperity which is everywhere in evidence. While the national banks of the city have shown an annual increase of nearly $10,000,000, the business of the clearing-house reached a total of $650,000,000. Kansas City occupies tenth place among the cities of the United States in volume of business done, and stands just below Cincinnati, a city much larger in point of population. Some of the cities below Kansas City are: New Orleans, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Houston, Louisville, Detroit, Galveston, Providence, Columbus, Omaha, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Buffalo, St. Paul, and St. Joseph.
Although leader of the world in many lines, there is no other in which the pre-eminence of Kansas City is so marked as in its wholesale business in agricultural implements. So far above competition is it in this respect that its supremacy has never been challenged.
Other cities may dispute among themselves the honor of being in second place, but none has ever questioned the right of Kansas City to take first rank in this respect. Kansas City does at least double the amount of business in agricultural im- plements transacted by any other city in America.
Kansas City has five flour mills with a combined capacity of about 7,000 barrels a day. The product of these mills is now shipped to every continent and to nearly every country on the earth.
CHAPTER XVII.
A Glance at the Stock-Yard and Packing-House Industries.
The packing-house and stock-yard interests of Kansas City are so closely allied that it is almost impossible to refer to one without the other. During all the years that have witnessed the growth and development of the Kansas City Stock Yards the packing-houses have kept even pace, and to-day Kansas City is not only the second largest packing center in the country, but her packing industry is also second only to Chicago's. Kansas City now has five large packing-houses and a sixth is nearing
completion. Those which have been constantly employed during the past year in the production of dressed meat and meat products are: The Armour Packing Company, Swift & Co., Dold Packing Company, Schwarzschild & Sulzberger Co., and George Fowler, Sons & Co. These concerns slaughtered during the year 1899: 975,334 cattle, 2,646,073 hogs, and 597,673 sheep. The total value of products was $90,000,000. Over 10,000 men are employed every day in the year, repre- senting a pay-roll of about $20,000,000 annually.
The plant of the Cudahy Packing Company, which will be finished by March Ist, will cost over $1,000,000 and employ about 2,000 operatives. The total value of its six packing- houses is $8,850,000. With the completion of the Cudahy plant their total daily killing capacity will be 11,700 cattle, 34,000 hogs, and 12,500 sheep.
GLADSTONE BOULEVARD.
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KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI.
The Armour Packing Company is the out-growth of the first packing business established in Kansas City. When the firm of Plankington & Armour dissolved, the present company was organized. It is the largest of all in point of daily capac- ity and volume of business. The present head of the vast establishment is K. B. Armour. The plant is situated near the bank of the Missouri River in the West Bottoms about midway between the plants of George Fowler, Sons & Co. and the Jacob Dold Packing Company. The Armour Packing Com- pany is the largest employer of labor in Kansas City, having nearly 3,000 men employed regularly on its pay-roll. The standard brands of products of the Armour Packing Com- pany by their excellence and uniformity are known all over the world. This company has been especially fortunate in securing many large army contracts both from this country and European governments.
The Kansas City Stock Yards, in point of convenience and equipment, excel any other yards in the world. With their chutes, alleys, pens, and tracks, they cover 161 acres of land. Situated in the heart of the finest stock-raising land in the United States, Kansas City is everywhere looked upon as the natural center of the live-stock industry of the country, and the rapid and continuous development of her live-stock and packing business fulfills the roseate prophecies that were made by her friends years ago, when Kansas City was but the way-station where a few cattle were fed on their way to Chicago from the far Southwest. The Kansas City Stock Yards were started by two men in 1867. At that time the "yards" consisted of a few pens, where cattle were fed. From that time to this there has
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KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI.
not been a year when the business of the yards has not shown gains over the previous twelve months. In all this period, when progressive business men were uniting to build up Kansas City's live-stock interests, there were those who foresaw the position that this city would one day take in the packing world, and as a natural consequence the packing business kept pace with the live-stock business.
By enterprise and the natural demands for greater capacity and better equipment, the Kansas City Stock Yards have been made the standard upon which all other yards have been pat- terned. Every pen in the yards is supplied with pure fresh water and connected with a perfect sewer system. Four hun- dred cars of stock can be handled at one time, and this gives employment to about 300 yardmen. The cattle department has a capacity of 25,000 head per day, and is divided into blocks and pens most conveniently arranged. The alleys and pens are paved with vitrified brick, and on the tops of the di- viding fences are board walks for the convenience of the patrons and stock-raisers in getting about the yards. All the other pens and departments are in keeping with the cattle department.
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LAKE IN THE PASEO,
CHAPTER XVIII.
Kansas City in the Present .- Retrospect .- Prospect.
In this Western city now center twenty systems of railroads, radiating 58,225 miles. Over these roads 130,000 trains ar- rive and depart each year. These railroads traverse thirty States and Territories, and there are 1,550 miles of switch track in the city. One hundred and ninety passenger and 337 freight trains arrive and depart daily, handling on an average 118,000 tons of freight; between 5,000 and 6,000 men are em- ployed by the railroads.
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