USA > Kansas > Wyandotte County > Kansas City > Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas. Historical and biographical. Comprising a condensed history of the state, a careful history of Wyandotte County, and a comprehensive history of the growth of the cities, towns and villages > Part 46
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It is a noticeable feature of the Southwest that all the cattle and hog feeders tributary to this market are becoming convinced that in the long run they can do better here with their offerings than to take them elsewhere. For a time the Omaha market was tried, but it was quickly found out that competition was not strong enough there for the purposes of bringing the highest available prices. During former years Chicago and St. Louis took a good portion of the live-stock west of here, but within a few years the stockman has changed his tactics and finds that Kansas City is a true friend to his interests, when sales year in and year out are taken into consideration. The average of prices, especially on hogs, during the past year has been higher than either at Chicago or at St. Louis. At times holders of cat-
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tle have been dissatisfied with offers made for their cattle at this point and have carried the same on to Chicago. Unless a professional buyer for both markets, these ventures have as a rule resulted disastrously to the party who cared to risk other markets. They have found that in the two days necessary to get to Chicago, for instance, prices have gone down or they have lost stock en route, or shrinkage has been so great that they would be glad had they never made the attempt of bettering their condition. This is so much the case that the bulk of the cattle feeders have made up their mind to be satisfied with the prices that may hold here, which are oftentimes within a fraction of those at the more Eastern markets, and away ahead when cost of transportation and shrinkage is taken into consideration. It must not be overlooked that competition among local packers and dressed-meat men becomes each year sharper and sharper. The local houses are anxious to keep the best cattle right here, and are willing, frequently, to offer more than a fair market value might warrant.
While other lines stand still, or at least make but a poor showing as compared to previous years, the total values of live stock handled at this point forge upward with mammoth strides. The past year has proven no exception to the rule. On every hand progress has been the rule. The management of the stock-yards has expended immense amounts of money to further the easy and convenient hand- ling of stock. Over twenty acres have been added to the stock-yards' domain, and every inch of available space has been filled with cattle and hog yards and loading and unloading chutes. The number of the latter at present in the yards is over 200. This enables incoming stock to be promptly handled with the least possible delay and also facilitates the quick shipments of those that may be sent on to the East. With the present accessories 6,500 cattle can be unloaded within two hours, while three-quarters of that number can be loaded. Immense double-deck hog sheds have been constructed within the past year. These have proven most acceptable for the quick hand- ling of hogs. Beforetimes there was a good deal of complaint on the part of the buyers that they had to go all over the yards in order to find what they wanted, and when they had made purchases they de- clared they suffered losses an account of the long drives to their own private pens. Especially was this the case during the hotter days of summer. Now with the present system of double-deck pens, hogs may be examined from all sections of the country without the buyer or seller being compelled to go from under cover. When a fair
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purchase is made, the hogs are at once driven to the pens beneath, and later, when the day's purchases are completed are sent to the dif- ferent packing-houses. This is one of the best features of the hog department of these yards, and is one that is enjoyed by no other yards in the land. All the yards and pens throughout the length and breadth of the yard are planked with cypress or oak, and are kept clean by a special gang of workmen employed for that purpose alone. Thus the cattle and hogs are kept as clean as possible, and the seller and buyer are not compelled to wade through mud or encounter heavy dust clouds at any time. Weighing scales are established at convenient points in the yards of the most exact description, and special weighmasters who are expert in the business are employed to adjust measures.
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CHAPTER XXIV.
NAVIGATION OF THE MISSOURI AND THE KAW-KANSAS CITY'S FA- VORABLE LOCATION-THE ADVENT OF STEAMBOATS ON THE MIS- SOURI-THE DAYS OF PIONEER NAVIGATION-" BOATING" BEFORE TIIE WAR-RIVAL LINES-EXCITING RIVER RACES-OLD BOATS AND CAPTAINS-FIRST DISCUSSION OF BARGE NAVIGATION-EFFORTS AND FAILURES-THE MOVEMENT CRUSHED BY THE PANIC OF 1873 -REVIVED FOUR YEARS LATER-BARGE TRANSPORTATION TRIED AND FOUND FEASIBLE-MISFORTUNES AND ANTAGONISTIC INFLU- ENCES-RIVER IMPROVEMENT-CONGRESSIONAL APPROPRIATIONS- ILL ADVISED EXPENDITURES AND CONSEQUENT DISAPPOINTMENT- OTHER NAVIGATION MOVEMENTS-ORGANIZATION OF THE KANSAS CITY AND MISSOURI RIVER TRANSPORTATION COMPANY-THE CON- STRUCTION AND ARRIVAL OF TIIE MASON, TIIE STATE OF KANSAS AND THE STATE OF MISSOURI-BENEFITS TO ACCRUE FROM THE ENTERPRISE-AN ENTHUSIASTIC CELEBRATION - PART IN IT OF KANSAS CITY, KAS .- ACCOUNT OF THE NAVIGATION OF THE KAN- SAS RIVER.
ISTORY teaches that the great commercial centers of civilization always lie in the paths of the great waterways of a country. Kan- HORMON sas City, Kas., lying in such a position, seems to have been located by its founders with an especially acute eye to its future greatness, for a boat set adrift on either the Missouri or Kaw seeks shore within the limits of this city. The navigation of the Missonri began in May, 1819, when the steamboat Independence ascended the stream from St. Louis to Council Bluffs. She passed Frank- lin on May 28, where a dinner was given to her offi- cers on shore. Two years before, the first boat that plowed the waters of the Mississippi River above Cairo, the General Pike, arrived at St. Louis. In August and September, 1819, the steamers Expedition, R. M. Johnson and Western Engineer navigated the Missouri River
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as far as the mouth of the Yellowstone River, having on board a scien- tific party and a number of soldiers, under command of Maj. Long, of the United States army.
The advent of steamboats upon the Missouri, in 1819, caused public attention to be attracted to the vast stretches of fertile lands bordering upon the stream. Large numbers of the hardy inhabitants of Vir- ginia, Tennessee and Kentucky were attracted to Missouri by the glowing accounts they had received of it. Soon a number of little towns and trading posts were built upon the banks of the river. In 1821 M. Chouteau established a trading post in the East Bottom oppo- site Randolph. In 1825 he was joined by his brother Cyprian. The following years a number of other Frenchmen and their families arrived and settled within the present limits of Kansas City. The Chouteaus were the agents of the American Fur Company, and they soon estab- lished a large and profitable trade at this point with the Indians. The supplies and goods needed in their business by the Chouteaus were brought here, and the large quantities of furs annually purchased by them were shipped to St. Louis in steamboats.
While Kansas City was still known as "Chouteau's warehouse," because of a building erected by M. Chouteau on the river front, the overland trade with New Mexico assumed vast proportions. Inde- pendence, Blue Mills and Fort Osage were for several years compet- itors for that trade. All the goods and provisions handled by them in fitting out trains were brought from St. Louis in steamboats. Blue Mills, which is situated six miles below Independence, soon became the favorite landing point for the boats. Independence, being the county seat and the large and more important place, became the headquarters of the Santa Fe trade as early as 1832. It held the bulk of the trade until 1843, when the trade was temporarily suppressed by order of President Santa Anna, of Mexico. Independence traders pre- ferred Wayne City as a landing point for the boats, but they could not induce the river men to abandon Blue Mills.
In 1826 Louis Roy established the first ferry at this point. He ran a flatboat from the foot of Grand Avenue to Harlem. In order to provide better access to the ferry than existed at that time, he cut a road through the woods from near the corner of Fifteenth and Walnut Streets, Kansas City, Mo., to the river front. The road furnished, in later years, the means of reaching Westport by a short cut, and had much to do in diverting the great Santa Fe trade from Independ- ence and Blue Mills to Westport by way of "the Landing," which is
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the Kansas City, Mo., of to-day. In 1837 and 1838 many of the Santa Fe traders began stopping at Westport, and naturally preferred to receive their goods at Westport Landing, only four miles distant, than wagoning them from Independence, twelve miles distant, and Blue Mills, eighteen miles distant. The restrictions imposed by Gen. Santa Anna upon the trade between New Mexico and the United States were considerably modified in 1844, and as Independence and Blue Mills had suffered a setback during the suppression of the trade, considerable of the business done by them was diverted to Westport and Westport Landing. After the Mexican War of 1845 and 1846, Kansas City, which came into being in the latter year, began to do a share of the Santa Fe trade. A number of warehouses had been built in the new town, and their owners went into the Santa Fe trade extensively on their own account. It was at that time that the Missouri River traffic became an important factor in the commerce of that vast section of Uncle Sam's domain lying west of the Alle- ghany Mountains.
The discovery of gold in California in 1849 gave an impetus to the business of "the Landing." Many overland parties for the new gold mines were fitted out there. They frequently came in boats and pur- chased their wagons, horses, mules, arms and ammunition, provisions and other supplies. In the meantime the Santa Fe trade prospered. The opening of Kansas and Nebraska to settlement also largely increased the travel upon and traffic business of the Missouri River steamboats. Opposite "the Landing," on the Kansas side, the set- tlement had begun which has resulted in the Kansas City, Kas., of to-day, the largest and most important municipal and commercial point in the commonwealth. From 1850 until the beginning of the Civil War there was an average of six boats daily at the levee. In 1857 there was a fleet of sixty throngh boats between St. Louis and Mis- souri River points. Over 75,000,000 pounds of merchandise came to Kansas City by boat that year. This point was then said by boatmen to be receiving more freight than any other five places on the river above St. Louis. In May, 1857, steamboats were employed in carry- ing the United States mails, which they did until superseded by the railroads. In August, 1857, the Missouri River Packet Company made Kansas City its terminal point, and all freight for points higher up the river was transferred here to another line of boats, and tickets for travel on the stage lines were sold here. After the completion of the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad to St. Joseph March 1, 1859, a
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line of boats was put on the river between Kansas City and that city, as an extension of the shipping facilities of the road.
Between 1850 and 1860 nearly all the business houses were along the river front. It was a busy and interesting scene when a steam- boat landed and everybody near by, on both sides of the States line, went down to the levee to see who had arrived and to drum up trade. It was not an uncommon thing for a boat to have between 300 and 400 passengers on board, besides being weighted down to the water's edge with freight of all descriptions and horses, mules and oxen. Passengers frequently slept on the floors of the boats and on tables and in chairs. There was great competition between the officers of the different boats for passenger traffic, and they vied with each other in furnishing accommodations to and setting the tables for their cabin pas- sengers. It was a real luxury to travel on one of the old time Missouri River steamboats. Among the boats plying between St. Louis and Kan- sas City from 1847 to 1857 were the Admiral, Peerless, Sacramento, Cataract, John M. Converse, Morning Star, William Campbell, F. X. Aubrey, Sultan, Emma, Silver Heels, Star of the West, Minnehaha, Col. Crossman, Edinburgh, Ogden and Emigrant. Capts. Yore, Gonsollis, Baker, Kercheval, Wineland, Brierly, Shaw, Nanson, Bart, Able, Burke, Bissell, Terrill and Boyd were noted river men and pio- neer commanders.
The Lightning line was very popular. Its boats were the F. X. Aubrey, Polar Star, New Lucy, Tropic, Cataract and Australia. Then there was the People's line, the boats of which ran from St. Louis to and above St. Joseph. The other boats on the river belonged to com- peting lines. All boats in those days were owned by individuals and not by stock companies, as would seem. The owners would get together and form lines. The Lightning line boats carried the mail and ran in connection with the Missouri Pacific Railway to Jefferson City, where the road terminated. The boats ran to Weston, which is just above Fort Leavenworth. Weston was then the largest shipping point on the river above Kansas City. The boats also ran to St. Joe. In 1856 to 1860 there were at least fifty-seven boats in the Missouri River trade between St. Louis and Council Bluffs. A number of boats ran through to Sioux City and Fort Benton. Some of the boats that ran. in opposition to the Lightning line were the Peerless, Silver Heels, Minnehaha and Meteor. In the lower end of the river were a num- ber of boats running to Miami, Cambridge and Glasgow. Among them were the Kate Swinney, Ben Lewis, Belle of St. Louis, C. W.
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Sumbart, Southwester and Bacon. The William H. Russell ran sev- eral years before the war in the Missouri River trade. Capt. Joe Kinney, of Boonville, built and owned her, together with the Kate Kinney, Joe Kinney, Alice, St. Luke and other boats.
The different boats were racing nearly all the time. They were all fast boats and every boat carried a band. Most of them had small brass cannon. When racing they would shoot across each other's bows with blank cartridges. When a boat got ahead of its rival its band would strike up a lively air. The bands also played going to and pulling out from a landing. Boats would jockey each other and crowd each other against the banks to avoid being beaten. Notwith- standing the great amount of racing indulged in there were but few accidents as a result. The races were against time, and were generally for a finely mounted pair of deer horns. The boat making the fastest time would take the horns and carry them upon her pilot house or at the guard rail under her bow. Big money was frequently bet upon races between boats by sports and river men.
In those days all the boats were side-wheelers. The insurance companies did not consider stern-wheelers safe boats for the Missouri River. Afterward they learned that the stern-wheelers were the best. For big carriers and for cheap running they are the superiors of side- wheelers.
Before the war the big shipments down the river consisted prin- cipally of hemp and tobacco. There was also considerable live stock shipped to St. Louis from Kansas City and other Missouri River points. Very little grain was shipped then. After the war jute took the place of hemp to a great extent, and it became unprofitable to raise hemp. The down river traffic consisted of wheat, corn, oats and tobacco. The rapid settlement of Kansas and Nebraska caused the wheat and corn and oats and cattle and hog trade on the river to become immense. If the railroads had not come in with great reduction in the time of carrying freight, the navigation of the river would not have fallen off as it did. Boating on the river was practically suspended during the war. None but Government transports were run at that time. In 1865 the trade revived, and a number of boats came back upon the river. In those days the Omaha line was started. The boats of that line had a big O between their chimneys. There were in the line the steamers Glascow, Columbian, Cornelia and Kate Kinney. They were all large sidewheelers. Their carrying capacity was 800 to 1,000 tons each. At that time there was also a line of steamers run from St. Joseph to
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Omaha, in connection with the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railway. From 1870 to 1879 the boats of the Missouri River Packet Company and Star Line ran to Kansas City, under the supervision of President E. W. Gould. The boats under his control were the Post Boy, Clara, Fannie Lewis, Alice, St. Luke, Joe Kinney, Gold Dust, David R. Powell, Bright Light, E. H. Durfey, Carroll, Ashland and a number of others. Then there was the Kansas City Electric Packet Company, organized by Capt. Hunter Ben Jenkins, which had the steamers Montana, Dacotah and Wyoming. They ran until 1887, when they were withdrawn from the Kansas City trade. The Montana was sunk at St. Charles bridge. The Dacotah and Wyoming were sold to go into the trade on other rivers. The three boats proved to be the best carriers on low water that were ever built for the Missouri River trade. They ran at high rates of speed, carried large cargoes and drew less water than any other boats that ran on the river. There have been no boats on the Missouri River running to Kansas City since 1887. The A. L. Mason, State of Kansas and State of Missouri are modeled on the same order as the Montana, Dacotah and Wyoming, with such improvements as experience has shown were necessary in order to give them more speed and the greatest possible carrying capacity.
During the nine months of navigation in 1857, the arrivals and departures of steamboats at Kansas City numbered about 1,500, which in 1873 had fallen off to 150. In 1883 there were not more than a dozen steamboats engaged in the Missouri River trade.
Since the building of so many railroads, the navigation of the Mis- souri River up to and to points above Kansas City has been sub- stantially discontinued. The attempts to introduce river commerce have been more or less futile on account of the unnavigable condition of the Missouri; yet interested persons have persevered, the Govern- ment has aided, and success seems at last to have dawned. The need of these persistent efforts has existed in the fact that though there are numerous railways leading from the consumers and great markets of the East to the smaller markets and producers of the West, the rates for shipping the farmers' products to the Eastern markets, and goods back to the Western markets are exorbitant. It would seem that among so many railroads there would be competing lines, and they do sometimes compete in carrying passengers, but their competition in moving the commerce of the country seldom benefits or gives reasona- ble rates to the people in general. Railroad companies "pool " their interests or manage in some way to keep transportation rates very
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high. They demand all or nearly all the difference between the actual cost of producing a bushel of grain in the West and its selling price in the East for carrying it to market, thus leaving the farmer little or no profit on his investment and labor. On the other hand they charge so much for carrying goods, groceries, and manufactured articles from the East that the farmers and consumers of the West have to pay exorbitant prices in order to allow the local merchants and salesmen a reasonable profit. The rule works both ways, and the transportation companies re- ceive and pocket the lion's share. This state of affairs has led the Western people, and especially of the two Kansas Cities, to look for relief from the oppression of monopoly by re-establishing navigation upon the Missouri to compete to some extent with the railroads. To this end the movement that has resulted in the organization of the Kansas City & Missouri River Transportation Company, with a subscribed capital stock of $130,000, by the people of Kansas City, Mo., and Kansas City, Kas., was inaugurated; the last and most fruitful to date of sev- eral of much historical interest.
The history of the persistent and long-continued attempts of lead- ing citizens and capitalists to secure to the Kansas Cities the benefits of barge and other river navigation is interesting, not alone on account of its importance, but as illustrating the patient perseverance which characterizes many of the efforts which have been put forth for the enhancement of local commercial interests.
The idea originated with Hon. W. H. Miller, who first gave it pub- licity in an article which appeared editorially in the Kansas City Journal, on the 23d of April, 1872, during Mr. Miller's connection with that paper as commercial editor and writer. In this article it was urged that quick transit by rail, and the difficulty and uncer- tainty of navigating the river during the latter part of the summer, had rendered steamboating unprofitable; that this point was com- pelled to receive and ship its freight by the various railroads, and that although it was favorably situated in that respect, it could not offer the inducements necessary for the shipment of the products of the surrounding country, nor to merchants in neighboring towns to supply themselves here with what they wanted for their customers; that local advantages in freights east were not sufficient to render it entirely im- possible to load grain on the cars in Kansas, Nebraska, Western Mis- souri and Western Iowa, for the markets to which grain from Kansas City was shipped, and in consequence, the smaller places in the district named, having access to Kansas City railroads, became collecting
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centers for the grain around them, and shipped it direct to Eastern mar- kets; and that a barge line would remove these conditions, and for obvious reasons secure to Kansas City benefits such as could not ac- crue from any other enterprise.
This article excited deep interest among the merchants, and was followed by others presenting more in detail the benefits it was pro- posed to secure. The Kansas City (Mo.) board of trade took up the subject and referred it to a standing committee on internal im- provements. April 29 this committee addressed letters to Col. Octave Chanute, then superintendent of the Leavenworth, Lawrence & Gal- veston Railroad, and Capt. James B. Eads, long foremost in engineer- ing enterprises in the West, Southwest and South, both of whom strongly favored the proposed measure, concurring in an opinion as to its feasibility and advantages. With the beginning of 1873 there was a more determined effort made to secure barge navigation, and it was proposed to put the matter to a practical test. A committee was ap- pointed to ascertain if barges could be secured, and if so, what guar- antee would be required. Correspondence with the Mississippi Valley Transportation Company, of St. Louis, then the only users of barges on the Western rivers, elicited but little satisfaction, but a subscription guarantee of $5,000 was provided for.
About this time St. Louis parties were arranging for a convention of Western congressmen to be held in that city May 13, to awaken a more general interest among them in the improvement of Western rivers. Kansas City was invited to send delegates, and the board of trade appointed a committee to attend. Mr. Miller was one of the delegates, and during his three-days' stay in St. Louis he wrote and secured the publication in the St. Louis Globe of three editorial arti- cles on barge navigation and transportation on the Missouri from a St. Louis point of view, favoring it as a St. Louis enterprise. Other St. Louis papers, which had a year before ridiculed the idea, now commended it, and the Kansas City press, which (the Journal excepted) had opposed the enterprise, now fell into line and urged the movement already on foot to secure a practical test.
A contract was soon afterward effected with the Mississippi Valley Transportation Company, to make a trial trip on a guaranty of $2, 700. It was proposed to load the barges with grain. The season of the year was unfavorable, and grain was so scarce that it was only with consid- erable difficulty that a cargo was secured; and no sooner had this ob- ject been attained than it was found impossible to secure proper in-
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surance of the grain, and its owners refusing to assume the risk them- selves, the project was necessarily abandoned.
After this failure, came the panic of 1873, which crippled enter- prise for some years, and it was not until 1877 that another important movement to secure barge transportation was made. On March 10 of that year, at a meeting of grain merchants, the subject was referred to a committee who conferred with the Great Central Dispatch Com- pany, which proposed to put barges on the river. But nothing came of the effort. On the evening of January 17, 1878, a meeting was held, at which a committee was appointed to further the barge naviga- tion project, for the grain business had now attained such proportions that the absolute necessity of this facility was quite generally admitted. This committee reported at another meeting held two days later, rec- ommending the organization of a Kansas City Company, with a cap- ital of $50,000, to own and operate barges. This proposition was so favorably received that $4,500 was subscribed at once. Resolutions were adopted, asking Congress for appropriations to remove snags and other obstructions from the river channel, and a committee of twenty was appointed to place the stock of the company. This committee met on the 20th and perfected plans, and on the 23d a large public meeting was held at the Board of Trade rooms in Kansas City, Mo. The committee of twenty had placed about 20,000 shares of the stock and secured promises to take about 10,000 additional shares, when the bank suspensions of 1878 occurred, after which further progress was impossible. But, it seeming probable that the balance of the stock could be placed during the spring, at a public meeting held on Feb- ruary 12, the subscribers decided to proceed with the organization of the company, and a committee was appointed to prepare the neces- sary papers. On the 14th the company elected directors.
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