USA > Kansas > Wyandotte County > History of Wyandotte County, Kansas, and its people, Vol. I > Part 36
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OTHER INDUSTRIES.
Rosedale has three elevators which handle a large portion of the grain shipped to Kansas City over the railroads. They are known as the Memphis, Frisco and Rosedale elevators. The Arms & Kidder flour mill and the Kimball Cereal mill are two important industries. The Anto Fedan Hay Press Company has a factory in Rosedale.
The Indiana Silo Company has a manufacturing plant near the Southwest boulevard and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railroad yards, and is one of the newest of the city's industries.
Rosedale has four post office sub-stations, five parks, two banks, six halls, one hotel, one newspaper, two lawyers, ten physicians, four artists, two architects, forty-one contractors, a volunteer fire depart- ment, and a live Commercial Club. It is an ideal place for suburban residences, with good street railway and interurban service.
A PIONEER FOR KANSAS GOOD ROADS.
When Dr. Simeon B. Bell of Rosedale was praetieing medieine, he endured hardships and suffered aches and pains while going to see his patients over roads that were rough, frequently muddy and often impassable. He became an advocate of good roads, and he has been hammering away at the subject for fifty years. He may properly be called the pioneer of the good roads movement in eastern Kansas. Years ago he helped to locate a road from the old Johnson Methodist Mission at Shawnee north to Argentine. Then he located a road along
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the Kansas river to the west. But the greatest undertaking with which he was connected was the building of the Southwest boulevard that now runs from Nineteenth and Main streets in Kansas City, Missouri, through Rosedale and on to Shawnee, nine miles below. But that was a long, hard fight.
BONNER SPRINGS, THE ANCIENT QUIVIRA.
Somewhere there is a half legendary story to the effect that the beautiful Quivira for which Coronodo, the Spanish explorer, searched in 1541 was found on the north bank of the Kansas river at the site of the present city of Bonner Springs, near the western line of Wyandotte connty. An analysis of the circumstantial evidence leads to the con- clusion that Coronodo and the forces under his command, entering Kansas at the southwest made their way in a northeasterly direction to the Missouri river to where Atchison now stands. Disappointed in their search up to that time for the fair Quivira, they passed down the Missouri river to the mouth of the Kansas to where the Indian vil- lage of Wyandotte was started a little over three hundred years after- wards. Thence Coronodo and his followers, charmed by the beautiful Kansas river valley, ascended that river sixteen miles. There they found the real Quivira and its famons springs, which they ealled Coronodo Springs and which in our time are known as Bonner Springs. It follows that Coronodo and his cavaliers spent the winter of 1541-2 at that place. They lived on the fish they caught in the river and the lakes by cutting holes in the ice, on buffalo their hunters killed on the high prairie to the north of the place, on deer they found in the woods, and on the abundant erop of fruits and nuts with which they were sup- plied by the Indians. Proof that the Coronodo band passed down the Missouri river to the site of Wyandotte is found in the historic fact that the cavaliers, among their weapons, earried and used as an implement of war halberds similar to the metallie Roman halberds. One of these, in excellent state of preservation, was unearthed by a Catholic priest near Leavenworth and another on the site of Kansas City, Missouri, by John Wilson, an archaeologist. These discoveries undoubtedly point to the conclusion that Coronodo and his men once wandered through Wyan- dotte county, and that two of their braves lost their lives-or their halberds-in combatting the savage foes.
THE FIRST COMMERCIAL CENTER.
But if the Coronodo story, plansable as it is and supported by much historie proof, is not sufficient to establish the claims of Bonner Springs as the oldest city in Kansas, there is still the proof positive that it was the first commercial center in Kansas. In the early for trade, the
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means of transportation was along the water courses, in Indian canoes or other small water craft. Trading posts were erected throughout the country, and as the only means of transportation were as above stated, these posts must be on navigable streams. So it happened that Bonner Springs came into prominence about one hundred years ago as the headquarters for extensive operations in the commerce then carried on between the French traders and the Indians that peopled Kansas.
THE FAMOUS FOUR HOUSES.
In 1764. August and Pierre Chouteau located in St. Louis and were the pioneers in this trade in the country west of the Mississippi river. They were soon in competition with the large companies operating from Canada. The skins of the beaver were the most sought for. They were found in great abundanee along the streams, from the Atlantic to the Pacifie. Their habits made them an easy prey for the trappers. They were hunted from one stream to another, and so rapidly were they destroyed that in the short space of thirty years the trappers of these animals met on the headwaters of streams flowing into the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
The Chonteans rapidly explored the country and established their trading posts along the Missouri and Kansas rivers about the beginning of the nineteenth century, and the principal trading post for Kansas was the famous "Four Houses." located on the site of Bonner Springs. In 1808 they crossed the Rocky mountains and built a fort and trading post on the head waters of the Columbia.
The "Four Houses" stood on the high ground between the present Union Pacific and Santa Fe railway stations, commanding a fine view of the river. They were built of logs on the four sides of a square, so they might provide the protection of a fort in case of an attack by the Indians. Here the Chonteans did an extensive business which was con- tinned to the time of the coming of the Delaware and Shawnee Indians and the establishment of a trading post at Secondine, now Muncie.
THE CELEBRATED SPRINGS.
Tradition has it that long before the first white man set foot on this soil the various tribes of Indians who inhabited the Kansas plains were in the habit of living at least a part of the year around these springs, which thereby gained the name of Indian Springs. There are several of the springs, each bearing a different name and each having a differ- ent water, but the name of Indian Springs applies to them generally. The medicine men of the Indian tribes usually brought all of their patients to these springs when the ordinary medicines failed to work, and the early settlers have heard many stories told of the great healing power of these waters for the red men.
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THE TIBLOW FERRY.
For many years a ferry was operated by Henry Tiblow, a club- footed Delaware Indian, and an official interpreter for the United States government. Ile lived in a log cabin which still stands on the west side of the city and is prized by the citizens for its historie interest. In November, 1870, the town was platted, John McDanield and his wife, Ellen, being proprietors of the townsite. With the Union Pacifie rail- road built along the north side of the river and the Santa Fe's line to Leavenworth crossing at that point, Tiblow soon grew to be a busy little town, with a briek school house, several flourishing business houses and dwellings. The site originally contained bloeks, each sub-divided
CABIN OF TIBLOW, THE FERRYMAN AND INDIAN INTERPRETER. (OLDEST HOUSE IN WYANDOTTE COUNTY.)
into lots. The numerons fine springs of medicinal waters in and around the place suggested that it be made a health resort and a place for suburban residences for persons engaged in business in Kansas City.
THE TOWN ORGANIZED.
Accordingly the town of Bonner Springs, adjoining Tiblow on the east was laid ont in November, 1855, by a company which included David R. Emmons, president, and James D. ITusted, secretary. Philo M. Clark, then, as now a resident, was one of the principal promoters and members of the company and by him it was named for Robert Bon- ner, the New York editor and publisher of that day. The town com- pany built the Coronodo hotel for the use of those who came to partake of the waters of the springs.
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Shortly afterwards the town was platted into nineteen blocks of various sizes, and a large body of land was thrown into the beautiful Saratoga Park, which is so pleasing to the sight of passengers on the trains passing by. The company also purchased lands adjoining the town and from time to time new additions were laid out.
A CITY ORGANIZED.
The growth of the town at first was slow, although the hotel was, in the summer season, crowded with guests. It was not until 1898 that Bonner Springs became a city of the third class, and Philo M. Clark became its first mayor; and for several terms he was chosen by the people as the official head of the city. Bonner Springs was peculiarly favored by geographical situation in many ways, but it was several years before the general public, and even the residents of Bonner Springs, were able to determine what the future might be.
DISCOVERY OF NATURAL GAS.
Practically the beginning of the reconstruction and development of Bonner Springs was the discovery of natural gas some few years ago, and after the gas was discovered and brought into use things began to change rapidly. First a large brick plant was established directly east of the city limits for the manufacture of sand brick. Next the attention of capitalists and manufacturers was attracted by the large deposits of shale that could be used for the manufacture of cement, and the plentifulness of natural gas that was available for fuel. This marked another advance, and possibly the greatest of Bonner Springs, for it meant the building, in a very short time, of the Bonner Portland Cement Company's plant, a mile east of the city, which is one of the largest manufactories of its kind in the world, with a capacity for mak- ing 2,500 barrels of cement each day, employing several hundred hands.
The company owns several hundred acres of lands along the rugged hills on the north side of the Kansas river in which there are deposits of shale and rock sufficient to keep the great mill going more than one hundred years.
At the present time the Bonner Portland Cement plant supplies the town of Bonner Springs, the Gray Brick manufacturing plant, and a large sanitarium, with natural gas for lighting and heating purposes. Their wells are of great depth and flow strong and steady, the company has sufficient acreage that they are reasonably assured of having suffi- cient gas to last them for years innumerable.
Vol. I-21
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THE LAKES AND PARKS.
The surrounding country of Bonner Springs is one of a very rich agricultural nature, and since the advent of the promoters of indus- tries, the town bids fair to become one of the most busy of the Kansas City suburbs. It is spoken of as a suburb because that is what it really will be upon the completion of the new electric line which is being built especially for the transportation of people to and from the health and pleasure resorts which will be completed soon. The possibility of Bonner Springs becoming the pleasure-seeking ground of Kansas Cityans is without a doubt probable, for it has two large lakes-Lake of the Forest and Lake of the Woods-which will furnish boating and fishing grounds, as well as the fine hotels and the numerous pleasures and the healing waters of the springs as attraetions.
The town itself is well situated on a gently sloping hillside and is immediately baeked by a beautiful forest which surrounds the lakes and valleys in which the springs are, and when the work is completed and the plans carried out that are now being put in force it will afford the best pleasure ground within any reasonable distance of Kansas City.
One other important feature of Bonner Springs is the large sani- tarium just north of the city limits. This accommodates a great num- ber of patients and is usually filled by health-seeking people who come there to rest and use the mineral waters which come from the several springs nearby.
CHURCHES AND SCHOOLS.
Bonner Springs now is a busy little city with many thriving busi- ness houses, factories and beautiful homes. It has a magnificent high school and graded schools and three handsome churches-Methodist, Baptist and Christian. Episcopal services also are held there. It has a system of water works and, as before stated, natural gas supplied to its business houses and residents. A sewer system has recently been established, and the streets, once trod by the feet of many thousands of Indians who went there in the early days to trade at the "Four Houses," are now being paved. The city, by the census of 1910, had a population of 1,600.
FIRST RURAL MAIL DELIVERY THERE.
Bonner Springs is the central point for the delivery of mail by the rural free delivery system for a large seetion of Wyandotte, Leaven- worth and Johnson counties. It was there, sixteen years ago, that the first free delivery ronte in the United States was established by the post office department. At first it was merely an experiment, but it proved so successful that hundreds of rural mail routes were established in many states.
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OTHER TOWNS IN WYANDOTTE COUNTY.
A busy little town along the line of the Union Pacific railway eleven miles, west of the mouth of Kansas river is Edwardsville. It was a station on the Union Pacific Railroad, in the sixties, and was named for Hon. John H. Edwards, who was then general passenger and ticket agent for that railroad and served as a state senator from Ellis county, Kansas. The land where this town now stands was once the farm of Half-Moon, a chief of some degree among the Delawares. He sold the land to General T. Smith, of Leavenworth and others, who in turn sold it to William Kouns. A post office was established there in 1867. The Methodist Episcopal church effected an organization in 1868, and had quite a large membership. In 1868, through the personal in- fluence and direct labors of William Kouns, the county commissioners created the town of Delaware, in which Edwardsville is located. It was platted in 1869-the proprietor being Mr. Kouns. Some time in 1870 the Christian church was organized. Composite Lodge No. 152, A. F. & A. M., was organized in 1872, but in 1877 surrendered its charter. The town now has a population of about seven hundred, a fine brick school house, a bank, several general stores, a blacksmith and wagon shop, a good depot, a telegraph office and a telephone exchange. It is in the center of the great potato and fruit-growing industry of Wyandotte county. Hundreds of cars of these and other products are shipped annually from this station.
The town of Muncie, on the Union Pacific railroad six miles west of Kansas City, Kansas, was formerly the old Indian town of Secon- dine, when Moses Grinter, the first white settler in the county, conducted a ferry for many years for the United States government military road from Fort Leavenworth to Fort Scott. The Delaware Indians once had a grist mill there, but it afterwards was abandoned. The story of this mill and the old ferry and Chouteau trading post, which are a part of the early history of the place, appears in other chapters of this work. Muncie is a mere village with a general store, but it is an im- portant shipping point for the rich agricultural, gardening and fruit growing section. The Union Pacific recently acquired a large body of land at that place for outside freight yards.
Another station on the Union Pacific is Loring in Wyandotte county, at the west county line.
The town of Turner on the Santa Fe railroad nine miles from the mouth of the Kansas river, is so close to Kansas City, Kansas, as to be almost included within its limits. It is at the west end of the great vards of the Santa Fe and is surrounded by many small farms, gardens and orchards. It has a school and several stores.
Three miles southwest of Turner on the Santa Fe, in Wyandotte county, is the town of Morris, established in the eighties. It is the
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feeding station on the railroad for live stock entering the Kansas City stock yards and has pens and traekage sufficient for handling several trainloads of stock at one time.
On the Kansas City Northwestern division of the Missonri Pacific Railway is the quiet little village of White Church, historic because of its founding in the thirties by the Delaware Indians, told in the chapters relating to those Indians and the old missions. The town itself has grown little since first it became a rallying point for the Delawares, but around its cluster of dwellings and stores, the old M. E. Church South, and the Presbyterian church that was established in 1869, the post office and Masonie hall, are finely improved farms which make it a community of wealth and enlture.
On the Kansas City-Northwestern Railroad, nine miles west from the month of Jersey creek at Kansas City, Kansas, and three hundred feet higher than that point, the town of Bethel was laid ont in 1887 by the White Church Townsite and Improvement Company, David D. Hoag, president. It is about three quarters of a mile northeast of the town of White Church and one-half mile southwest of Bethel station on the Kansas City Western Interurban Electric Railway. It now contains a large general store, brick and terra cotta works, a railroad depot, telegraph and express office, a town hall, blacksmith and wagon shop, etc. It is very pleasantly situated, and, lying on the ridge, as it does, above the mosquito line, it is never infested with these trouble- some inseets. From this point can be seen Kansas City, Leavenworth, Parkville and other points in the distance. Bethel is designed as a suburban residence town for the two Kansas Cities. Many lots have been sold to parties in the cities, who contemplate building residences there.
Piper also situated on the Kansas City, Wyandotte & Northwestern Railroad, on the southwest corner of section 28 and the northwest corner of section 33, township 10 north, range 23 east, was laid out in Septem- ber, 1888, by L. E. Scott, Margaret Scott, John Waldron, Ella L. Wald- ron, W. S. Brown and S. A. Brown, the proprietors of the town site which embraced forty acres. The village contains two general stores, a blacksmith and wagon shop, railroad depot, telegraph and express office, ete., and a population of between two hundred and three hundred.
Other hamlets and stations along the Kansas City-Northwestern Railroad in Wyandotte connty are: Vanee, which also is on the Kansas City Western Electric ; Menager Junetion, at the west line of the county where the Leavenworth branch leaves the main line; Wallula, in the northwest part of the county; Maywood, two miles southeast of Piper. Each situated in a rich agricultural community, is supplied with general stores, schools, churches, telephone, telegraph and rural delivery service.
The principal town on the Missouri Pacific Railway, main line between Kansas City and Leavenworth, is the town of Wolcott, twelve
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miles above the month of the Kansas river in the northeast corner of Wyandotte county. It was platted as Conner in February, 1868, the owners of the townsite being Alfred and William Hughes. The town has been an important shipping point and it is well supplied with stores, hotels, schools and churches. When the Kansas City Western Electric Railway was constructed in 1902 the name of the town was changed to Wolcott, in honor of the first general manager of the line, Herbert Wol- cott. The railway company constructed a great electrical power plant at the place which was used to supply the power for its line between Kansas City and Leavenworth. The power house was destroyed by fire four years ago. The company has its operating headquarters at Wolcott. The population is about four hundred.
The town of Pomeroy on the Missouri Pacific nine and one-half miles from Kansas City, Kansas, also on the Missouri river, was platted in 1871 by William P. Overton and Frank H. Betton, who were operat- ing a steam flour and saw mill there. It contains several stores and a small cluster of houses. It is an important shipping point for dairy- men who supply large quantities of milk for the city. The town has grown very little since it was founded forty years ago.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
KANSAS CITY OF TODAY.
FIGURES SHOW SUBSTANTIAL GROWTH-AN ERA OF IMPROVEMENT- THE FLOOD OF 1903-THE NEW CITY HALL-MUNICIPAL WATER WORKS -A MUNICIPAL ELECTRICAL PLANT-PARKS AND BOULEVARDS KANSAS CITY POST OFFICE-NEW POST OFFICE BUILDING-STREET RAILWAY FACILITIES-FIRST INTERURBAN RAILWAY-FINANCIAL STRENGTH-HO- TELS OF OLD WYANDOTTE THE MERCANTILE CLUB-OTHER CIVIC ORGAN- IZATIONS-CHIARITABLE AND CHRISTIAN ORGANIZATIONS.
The Kansas City, Kansas, of today is a city of homes; of schools, libraries, churches, clubs, societies, places of entertainment. It is a city without an open saloon or a gambling joint; a city of street rail- way facilities, rapid transit interurban lines, bridges, viaducts, paved streets, macadamized driveways, parks and play-grounds; a city of public buildings, business houses, commercial enterprises; of banks, loan and trust companies, financial institutions and insurance com- panies; a city of mills and elevators, foundries, machine shops, steel works, cotton mills, soap works, brick yards, lumber yards and factories of many kinds ; a city of stock yards, packing houses, oil refineries, power plants, water works and electrical works; a city of transportation lines, car building and repair shops, round houses and terminal yards. In fact, it is a city in which is combined those things that are essential to a vigorous, healthy, progressive municipal life.
Good material was welded together in the making of the city, in the year 1886. The old city of Wyandotte, organized in the territorial days of 1857 and rich in historie Indian romance, rested on the pictur- esque hills overlooking the valleys of the Kansas and Missouri rivers. The former city of Kansas City, Kansas, incorporated in 1868, occupied a narrow strip of Kansas soil lying between the state line and the Kan- sas river. The ambitions little city of Armourdale, chartered in 1882, was building np the valley on the north side of the Kansas river.
These three combined gave Kansas City, Kansas, 21,299 inhabi- tants to start with. It was a good start, for they were people pos- sessed of the Kansas spirit. From the year of that consolidation the city has never ceased to grow. At times it was by slow degrees, and at other times it was by leaps and bounds. In the first ten years the eity doubled its population. In the second ten years it doubled its popula-
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tion again. In 1910 it had a total of 82,331 inhabitants, and this is almost four times the number of people it had to start with, twenty- five years ago.
FIGURES SHOW SUBSTANTIAL GROWTH.
The official census figures for Kansas City, Kansas, since the act of consolidation became effective, in 1886, form the best evidence of the steady growth of the city. These figures follow :
1886, state census at consolidation 21,299
1890, United States census 38,316
1900, United States census 51,418
1910, United States census 82,331
AN ERA OF IMPROVEMENT.
A serious problem confronted the first administration of the new city. It was the linking together of the cities and towns that had been built, each independent of the other. But the problem was solved through the inauguration of an era of public improvements. Streets were graded and paved and viaducts were built over which main thoroughfares were opened between the Wyandotte, Armourdale and old Kansas City divisions, that their people and their interests might be brought together as one. And well did the "city fathers" do their work. The new civic spirit thus awakened found expression in many ways for the betterment of conditions. In the first five years of the new city's life more than $2,000,000 was expended on the grading, paving and curbing of streets, and the building of sidewalks, sewers and bridges. And in the years that have followed, although periods of depression came, this same spirit has been undaunted. Today the city, covering an area of nineteen miles, has ninety-seven miles of well paved streets, with many miles of granitoid and briek sidewalks, and also a great system of drainage and sanitary sewers, such as can be found only in the most progressive cities.
THE FLOOD OF 1903.
One of the greatest disasters that ever befell an American city was that which came to Kansas City by the flood of 1903 in the Kansas river valley. In the extent of damage, though there was no loss of life, it is exceeded only by the San Francisco earthquake disaster, the Galves- ton flood and, perhaps, the Johnstown flood. During the entire month of May of that year it rained almost incessantly throughout the entire Kansas river water-shed. The consequence was that every branch, every creek and every stream of any kind poured great volumes of water
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