USA > Missouri > Jackson County > Kansas City > Kansas City, Missouri : its history and its people 1808-1908 > Part 29
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For some years The Record was regarded merely as the daily report of a mercantile agency, but each year new fields were entered until all classes of business news were reported and the publication assumed its place in the the legitimate newspaper field. The legal status of The Record was undeter- mined however, until May 25, 1897, when the Supreme court of Missouri declared it to be a newspaper in the legal sense, a conclusion which the pub- lic had reached long before. Immediately following this decision The Record entered its wider field of usefulness in legal advertising. A reputa- tion for accuracy had been established in preceding years of careful work and attorneys naturally entrusted their important legal advertisements to The Record. Making a specialty of this work brought further business until a large proportion of the general legal advertising of Kansas City and Jack- son county is published in this newspaper. Many of the banks, trust com- panies and other corporations depend upon The Record for legal publication of their notices.
The board of public works of Kansas City, Missouri, in 1904, awarded to The Record the contract for doing all legal printing required by the city, which contract has been renewed from year to year. The Record is also the official newspaper for the county court of Jackson county, and all notices emanating from that body which require publication must be inserted in this paper.
The personnel of the staff of The Record has changed but little with the passing years, a fact to which much of its success may be attributed. Ed- win T. Chester is business manager; J. R. Andrews, court reporter, has held this responsible position almost continuously since the establishment of the newspaper. In point of service he is the oldest member of the staff with the exception of the president, Ernest E. Smith.
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In addition to a complete report of all proceedings in the Circuit court, The Record publishes fully and accurately a daily abstract of all instruments filed for record in Jackson county, Missouri, and Wyandotte county, Kansas. Also building permits, mechanics' liens, suits, judgments and executions. A report of fires occurring in the city is one of its features. A complete daily abstract of all pending public improvements, such as paving, grading and sewers, has proven to be of great convenience and value to property owners. The subscription price is $1.25 per month.
The Record, in March, 1906, moved into its own home, the New Rec- ord building, a substantial steel and concrete fire proof structure erected at 523 Locust street at a cost of $20,000. New equipment was necessary in the new home and new presses, folders and linotype machines were installed.
The Kansas City Mail was consolidated with The Record in February, 1901. This newspaper had no connection with The Mail consolidated with The Star. The Mail purchased by The Record from M. W. Hutchinson and C. W. Hutchinson, was established March 18, 1892, by Smith Moses Ford, a former teacher and newspaper writer from Xenia, Ohio. Mr. Ford had represented the Fourth ward of Kansas City as an alderman, being elected by the Democrats. His son Guilford C. Ford, was business manager of The Mail, while his father owned the newspaper. Perry Ellis of Quincy, Ill., was the first managing editor. January 5, 1893, Melville W. Hutchinson, who had been employed by the paper December 1. 1892, was made manag- ing editor January 5, 1893, and continued to hold that position until the sale of the paper and its consolidation with The Record in the spring of 1901.
In the spring of 1893, Mr. Ford sold The Mail to Ed. H. Howe of the Atchison Globe for $12.000, and Mr. Howe came to Kansas City, bringing with him Miss Frances L. Garside, a woman of considerable versatility, as his principal writer. The same methods that had made the Atchison Globe a remarkable success were employed in Kansas City and the result was a very unique publication ; to-wit, a country paper in a metropolitan field. Mr. Howe had financial reverses at home, however, and becoming discouraged and disheartened by reason c" heavy losses sustained in the failure of the Continental Trust company .' Atchison, he returned to his first love, the Atchison Globe. He left Melville W. Hutchinson in charge of The Mail, with instructions to fill out the city printing contract and close up the plant. Later, however, Mr. Hutchinson became associated with his brother, Charles W. Hutchinson, and the Hutchinson brothers purchased the plant in May, 1893, secured a renewal of the city printing contract and continued the pub- lication of the newspaper until it was bought by The Record.
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The first issue of German paper in Kansas City, a weekly. published by August Wuerz, appeared on the 1st day of January, 1859. and was called the Missouri Sunday Post.
At the outbreak of the Civil war in 1861, Mr. Wuerz, who was an ardent anti-slavery man, had to flee by night and take refuge with paper and family in Wyandotte, Kansas, where he published the paper under the name of the Kansas Post. Nine months afterwards he returned to Kansas City and con- tinued to publish the paper under the name of Kansas City Post, as a Repub- lican paper. In 1865, a Democratic weekly, The Kansas City Tribune, was started by Colonel Ed Waren, Jr. In 1872, both papers were consolidated and published by August Wuerz, and Henry J. Lampe as a daily morning paper under the name, Post and Tribune.
After the death of Mr. Wuerz in 1882, his two sons, Hugo and Moritz Wuerz, entered into the firm which a few years later changed into a cor- poration, "The German Publishing Company."
In 1882 another daily, The Kansas City Presse, was founded and pub- lished as an evening paper by the "Kansas City Presse Publishing Com- pany." In 1896, The Kansas City Presse was bought by Mr. Philip Dietz- gen of Little Rock, Arkansas, and in 1897 both dailies were united, and since then appear as an evening paper, under the name Kansas City Presse, vereint mit der Post und Tribune; Philip Dietzgen. publisher, and Henry J. Lampe, editor.
This only German daily publication of Kansas City is the household paper of the 45,000 German-Americans of the twin cities on the mouth of the Kaw river. It is the organ of the 130 German, Austrian and Swiss societies, lodges, mutual aid and benevolent associations of Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas, and their 12,000 members, thousands of whom do not fully command the English language, or prefer a daily paper in their mother tongue.
On this account, the Kansas City Presse, like all German papers in this country, aims to uphold the relations with the old country by giving more news of the "vaterland" and details of events occurring there, than English papers appear to care to do.
The Staats Zeitung was a weekly publication founded by Frederick Gehring in Kansas City, in October, 1894, and since has continued in his possession. Mr. Gehring has been in the newspaper business the greater part of his long life. He is at the head of the editorial staff of the Staats Zeitung. B. L. Hertzberg has charge of the advertising department. The newspaper is independent in politics. It treats all publie questions from an impersonal viewpoint. It prints news from all parts of the world, the latest discoveries
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of science, hygiene and various other matters of interest. The newspaper has a circulation outside of Kansas City. The publication has regular sub- scribers in Germany, Austria and other foreign countries.
In addition to journals named above, there are numerous weekly and monthly publications representing various interests, including religion, edu- cation, medicine, law, insurance, commerce, finance, real estate, agriculture, and special lines in manufacture and trade. The stock interests are repre- sented by several publications, chief among which is the Daily Drovers Tele- gram, founded, in 1886.
The newspaper has a large circulation among the farmers and cattle raisers of the Southwest. Jay H. Neff, ex-mayor of Kansas City, is presi- dent of the Daily Drovers' Telegram Publishing Company. His brother, George N, Neff is vice-president and manager of the company.
Among miscellaneous journals, the most conspicuous was The Kansas City Review of Science and Industry, founded in 1877, by Colonel Theodore S. Case who published it with such ability as to command the attention of scientists and litterateurs. Eight years after it was founded it passed into the hands of Warren Watson and was soon discontinued. The Lotus an in- ter-collegiate magazine, was published in 1895-96 by Kansas and Missouri students. It was a dainty production devoted to literature, in prose and song, with numerous illustrations.
The press in recent years, gradually has been freeing itself from class restrictions and the dictation of political parties. Formerly most of the newspapers were strict party organs, and not much more was expected than a strict adherence to the party and a defense of its views. The Democratic organ published Democratic news and the Republican, Republican news. Thus it was necessary to read several newspapers in order to know the whole truth. With independence of thought, came the independent newspaper.
The human side of life is considered now, in every aspect, by the great newspapers, from the little details of home life to national and international affairs. Human interest is as vital to the neswpaper readers of to-day as are affairs of state. The daily life of the people is pictured in their occupations and in the mode of their entertainments. Life's tragedies and life's comedies are depicted each day and nothing is of more importance to mankind than the incidents that make up human existence. Stock market reports and the drift of public opinion line up with advice to mothers how to care for in- fants in the hot summer days, or with a good receipt for cookies. The greater the number of columns devoted to special subjects, the larger the cir- culation of that paper; and the larger the circulation, the greater the number of advertisers. Journalism is, in a sense, commercialism.
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Emilio Castelar, the greatest Spanish statesman and author, who knew the history of American polities better than most Americans, and to whom few Englishmen were equal in knowledge of the great masterpieces of Eng- lish literature, said :
"I can comprehend societies without steam engines, without the electric telegraph, without the thousand marvels which modern industry has sown in the triumphal path of progress, adorned by so many immortal monu- ments. But I cannot understand a society without this immense volume of the daily press, in which is registered by a legion of writers, who should be held in honor by the people, our troubles, our vacillations, our apprehen- sions, and the degree of perfection at which we have arrived in the work of realizing an ideal of justice upon the face of the earth.
Keeping in touch with the newspapers gives daily co-operation in thought with the brain of all humanity, sympathy with the hearts of fellow men, mingling of life with the great ocean of human existence, interest in the agitation of waves by the breadth of new ideas.
"For these exceptional witnesses know what rays of light cross each other on our horizon; these public judges preseribe rules which form the judgment of the human conscience upon all actions. The passion of parties is of small importance; without it perhaps we should not be able to com- prehend this prodigious work, which, like all human works, necessitates the steam of a great passion to set it in motion. The studied silence upon some subjects matters little, nor the partiality shown on others, nor the injustice, even to falsehood, so often manifested; for from this battle of spiritual forces results the total life as from the shadows we perceive the harmony of a picture.
"What a wonderful work is a newspaper-a work of art and science ! Six ages have not been enough to complete the cathedral of Cologne, and one day suffices to finish the immense labor of a newspaper. We are unable to measure the degrees of life, of light, of progress that are to be found in each leaf of the immortal book which forms the press. We find in a journal everything, from the notices relating to the most obscure individuals to the speech which is delivered from the highest tribunal, and which affects all in- telligenees ; from the passing thought excited by the account of a ball to the criticism on those works of art destined to immortality. This marvelous sheet is the encyclopaedia of our time; an eneyelopaedia which neces- sitates an incalculable knowledge-a knowledge whose power our generation cannot deny-a knowledge which is as the condensation of the learning of a century."
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CHAPTER XVIII.
CHURCHES.
The first church members who came to the vicinity of Kansas City were the Catholic hunters and trappers. The Catholic priests were the pioneer clergymen. The dauntless courage of the Catholic discoverer and voyager was kept alive by the knowledge that his priest would accompany him and share his hardships, or soon follow in his wake to administer to him the solaces of his religion.
When Robidoux first dipped his oar in the Mississippi river and steered his canoe northward, and then went up the Missouri river, in all probability he exacted a promise from the abbes then in St. Louis and the Florrisant valley to follow him. The American Fur company, in whose employ he went forth, knew that the permanency and ultimate success of their agency in the Platte country depended to a great extent on the presence and min- istrations of the priests. The company invited the priest to each of its agen- cies. Religion not only stimulated courage and fortitude in the employees, but it made them more honest and zealous in the company's interest.
The last quarter of the Eighteenth century witnessed the Catholic church deprived of one of its strongest agencies for the preaching of its divine teach- ings in new countries. The Jesuits as a society were under the ban of the church's disapproval-they were disbanded. The best drilled, the best dis- ciplined, the most efficient corps in the army of the church was mustered out of service. The society of Jesuits was successfully working among the In- dian tribes in the Eastern states, when Pope Clement XIV issued the order to disband. This left the conversion of the western tribes to a few diocesan priests engaged in Upper Louisiana and Illinois. This was a new field for the diocesan priest. To enter upon it and to minister to the white men scat- tered along the Missouri river forced the pastors of Kaskaskia, St. Louis and Florissant to neglect for a time their flocks. The priests who entered tem- porarily upon this new charge worked as effectually as the Jesuits would have done. But their labors were spasmodic and without system.
The first priest known to have visited the Indians in middle and Western Missouri and eastern Kansas, was Father La Croix, a chaplain to the Sisters - of the Sacred Heart at Florissant. He came west in 1821. He spent some time with the Frenchmen along the Missouri and Kansas rivers, among them those living where Kansas City now stands, and then went west to the fur agency at St. Joseph. He then returned to Florissant.
The next priest who did missionary work among the western Indians and the western white men was the Rev. Joseph Lutz. The time of his first
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visit was 1825. He was a young German priest, and at that time one of the clergymen assisting Bishop Rosati at the St. Louis cathedral. He knew there were Catholic Indians in the West and he opened a correspondence with them through the Indian agents. An Indian chief, named Kansas, who was the head of the tribe of that name, went to St. Louis to have a personal interview with Father Lutz. The result was that Father Lutz started on his first missionary tour among the Indians of the West. He vis- ited the Kansas and the Kickapoo tribes. Even after the Jesuits became permanent missionaries among those Indians Father Lutz's interest in them did not lag, and he frequently accompanied the Fathers on their trips West. Father Lutz spent several months with the French in the bottom lands, now the business districts of Kansas City. Here he regularly said mass, and per- formed all the duties of a pastor. His visits to this locality continued until 1844.
Father Benedict Roux alternated with the Rev. J. Lutz in missionary work in Kansas City. Father Roux was a native of France. As pastor of Kaskaskia he volunteered occasional service at the mouth of the Kaw river. Father Roux first came here in 1833. The Catholics were no longer con- fined to the West bottoms; they were in the East bottoms too, and lived also on the surrounding hills. Father Roux said mass in a house near what is now Cherry and Second streets. This point soon became the most central for his people. Father Roux was a practical business man. He had acquired property and built churches in Kaskaskia and Cahokia. It was he who gave permanency to the mission here.
Father Roux purchased a site for a church. This not only was the first piece of Catholic church property ever purchased in Kansas City, but it was also one of the very first real estate transactions, for a consideration, ever made here. The land he purchased April 5, 1834, had been patented by Peter La Liberte, March 8, 1834, less than one month previous. Father Roux gave $6 for forty acres. This tract extended along the present west line of Broadway, from Ninth street to Twelfth street, and then due west to a point one hundred feet west of Jefferson street. Father Roux deeded ten acres of the tract to Bishop Rosati January 31, 1839. The ten acres are bounded by Eleventh street on the north, Twelfth street on the south, Broadway on the east, and the west line of the original forty acres on the west. The consid- eration for the ten acres deeded to Bishop Rosati was $2.
The two acres used for a graveyard until 1880, supplied the funds by which Father Bernard Donnelly purchased St. Mary cemetery, and the ten acres which he deeded to the Sisters of St. Joseph in 1879. The block bounded by Twelfth and Eleventh streets, and by Penn and Washington streets, was deeded by Archbishop Kendrick in 1866 to the Sisters of St.
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-Joseph, at the request of Father Donnelly. Father Donnelly sold stone from a quarry which he called "Rocky point," on Twelfth street between Penn and Jefferson streets, for riprapping the banks of the Missouri river, and for other purposes. The proceeds of all sales he gave to the sisters in the time of their need and for helping to purchase, and aid St. Joseph's hospital. But the Sisters were not the only beneficiaries of Father Donnelly's business man- agement of the ten acres. The church of St. Peter and Paul was liberally aided from this revenue. To St Patrick's Parish church for the first three years of its existence, he contributed $3,000 from the sale of brick from the brickyard which stood on the site of the episcopal residence. To Annun- ciation Parish he gave $300, all he could spare. When this parish was es- tablished his parochial territory was restricted and there was no lime or brick kiln to furnish him the means to be more generous.
Father Donnelly was deeply interested in the Westport parish. He gave property and material to the parish valued at $2,500. The Redemptorist Fathers received a worthy gift from him. The sale of the rest of the ten acres made the building of the cathedral and Christian Brothers' school a matter of not much effort.
The Rev. Charles Van Quickenborne and the Rev. Peter J. Timmer- man, two Jesuit Fathers, with seven aspirants to the priesthood and three lay brothers, left White Marsh, Md., for Missouri April 11, 1823. In 1827 Father Van Quiekenborne went on his first missionary excursion to the In- dians of the West. He visited the fur traders at the mouth of the Kaw river. He said mass, preached and administered the sacraments to them. In 1837 at the command of the Rev. Van Quickenborne, the superior of the society in the West, the Jesuits built a log church on the forty acre tract belonging to the Rev. Benedict Roux. Father Roux was in his parish at Kaskaskia, and gladly granted the necessary permission.
The new Catholic church was named in honor of a Jesuit saint, St. Francis Regis. It was built on what is now the south line of Eleventh street, and would be in the middle of Penn street. A two-room log house stood at the southwest corner of Eleventh and Penn streets, and remained standing until the property was purchased by the late Thomas Bullene.
Rev. Anthony Eisvogels was removed from Kickapoo village to the town of Kansas in 1842. He was the first resident pastor of what is now Kansas City. His missions were Independence, Weston, Irish Grove and Fort Leavenworth. Father Verhoegen succeeded Father Eisvogels, and was pas- tor in 1844-46. Father Saunier, diocesan priest, came in 1847. During Father Saunier's sojourn in the East in 1848, Father Donnelly then sta- tioned at Independence, succeeded him. Father Saunier was pastor to 1849. From 1845 when Father Donnelly came to Independence, he efficiently
ST. FRANCIS REGIS CHURCH. FIRST CATHOLIC CHURCH IN KANSAS CITY
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aided Father Saunier in his ministrations among the English-speaking Catholics.
With Father Bernard Donnelly began the modern history of the Cath- olic church in Kansas City. Father Donnelly succeeded the Rev. A. Saunier in the charge of the mission at the town of Kansas late in 1849. Father Donnelly's parish continued to be Independence where he resided. Besides Independence and the town of Kansas, he also attended Sibley in Jackson ยท county and Lexington in Lafayette county. He visited Catholics south and west almost to the Arkansas line, and east within twenty miles of Jefferson City.
Father Donnelly, in 1857, built a brick church facing Broadway, about midway between Eleventh and Twelfth streets. He also erected a one-room brick house with a basement. This house was enlarged at various times until it became a four-room house and two stories high. After completing this work he wrote Archbishop Kendrick, suggesting that a pastor be ap- pointed to live in Kansas City. The archbishop consented and Father Don- nelly became resident pastor here in 1857. The new church he called the Immaculate Conception. The name of St. Francis Regis ceased to be the parish title when the old log church was destroyed. For more than twenty- two years, Father Donnelly labored as pastor of Immaculate Conception. His first assistant was Father Michael Walsh, who remained with him but a few months when he was appointed pastor at Westport, in 1870. Father James Doherty succeeded Father Walsh. He was promoted to Annuncia- tion church, St. Louis, January 1, 1872. Father James Phelan was as- sistant until December, 1872, and his place was taken by Father Curran who came in 1878. Father Donnelly resigned in 1880. Immaculate Con- ception church became the Cathedral of Kansas City diocese on the appoint- ment of Bishop Hogan.
Father Halpin was the first pastor of St. Patrick's parish. He said mass for the first three months in St. Peter and Paul's church. The property secured for a church site was on the southwest corner of Seventh and Oak streets. Father Halpin began work on a large church but only succeeded in covering in a part of the basement. Father Halpin retired on July 11, 1872, and Father Archer of St. Louis was the next pastor. Father James A. Dunn was St. Patrick's third pastor.
A third division of the original parish of Kansas City was made May 25, 1872, when Archbishop Kendrick formed a part of the city known as West Kansas into a new parish. The new parish was named Annunciation. The Rev. William J. Dalton, assistant at Annunciation church, St. Louis, was assigned pastor. Father Dalton said the first mass for the new con- gregation, Sunday, June 27, 1872. An empty store on Twelfth street, be-
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tween Wyoming and Greene streets, was offered by its owner for temporary use. Two lots of fifty feet each on the southwest corner of Fourteenth and Wyoming streets were purchased, July 3, 1872. This property was then a portion of a cornfield, and had just been platted into an addition known as the Depot addition. August 22 following, 100 feet more were purchased on the southeast corner, facing the first purchase. A frame church building, 30x40 feet, was later completed and occupied. This building, situated on the first property purchased, was enlarged in September, 1872, and moved across the street to the new property. Here the congregation worshipped until November 12, 1882, when a new brick church was dedicated.
Anunciation parish was in that district of the city where the railroads, stock yards and machine shops were situated. An inundation from the Mis- souri river in 1882, and the purchase of entire streets of property by the Stock Yards company and the Rock Island railway company, in 1883, 1886 and 1892, forced the parishioners to other parts of the city, and reduced the congregation to a number less than were present at the foundation of the parish. In October, 1898, the church and pastoral residence were bought by the Rock Island railway company.
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