USA > Missouri > Jackson County > Kansas City > Kansas City, Missouri : its history and its people 1808-1908 > Part 40
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The street improvements of the current fiscal (1907) year brings the total of Kansas City's asphalt paving to 16,532 miles; bitulitgis, 1.36 miles; brick, 40.192 miles; macadam, 18.86 miles; boulevards, 11.74 miles; stonc, 2.41 miles, a total of 240.65 miles, a showing that few cities of half a million population can make. Kansas City occupies a place in the front rank as an asphalt paved city, being far out of its population class in this respect. In 1907, 20.05 miles of new pavement was added.
The story of Convention hall may be said to begin with a special meet- ing held in the rooms of the Kansas City Commercial club on the after- noon of June 12, 1897. There had been, previous to that time, discussion as to the need of a large auditorium in Kansas City. The necessity for such a building was especially felt when an exhibition of products manufactured in Kansas City was held in May and June, 1897, and it was found that there was no place in the city which would accommodate the crowds that were, attracted by the exposition. Public spirited citizens who attended a special meeting of the Commercial club on the closing day of this Home Products' show subscribed nearly $30,000 to the fund, for the purchase of
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the ground and the erection of an auditorium. A committee of fifteen was appointed to have full charge of securing the rest of the money required. No more aggressive, loyal and disinterested work was ever performed than by this committee, the result being that about $225,000 was subscribed toward the building fund by the people of Kansas City and the surround- ing country. The name of Convention hall was chosen for the new build- ing, and May 25, 1898, the ground was broken for the building. The formal opening of the hall took place on February 22, 1899, with a concert by John Philip Sousa and his band. The building was dedicated free of debt.
The next important event in the hall's history was the first perform- ance of Epperson's Minstrels, who appeared before an audience of 12,000 in April, 1899, and by the profits of their entertainment created a fund which was added to by similar performances, and out of which was built Kansas City's first public bath house, situated on The Paseo. A convention of the Band of Mercy held in the hall April 28, 1899, attracted to the build- ing 32,000 children. The next few months saw a round of concerts, con- ventions and balls. In the week of October 27, 1899, the Kansas City Horse Show association gave its first show in the building. Convention hall was first used for grand opera October 30, 1899, when the Maurice Grau Metropol- itan Grand Opera company of New York appeared in "Carmen." The fol- lowing night "Faust" was sung to 8,0000 people, one of the largest audi- ences that ever heard an opera in America. In November of that year Dwight L. Moody held a series of revival meetings in the hall, these being the last public meetings in which Mr. Moody appeared. The last time the first Convention hall was used by the public was for a political meeting held April 2, 1900. At one o'clock on the afternoon of April 4, 1900, it was dis- covered that the building was on fire. Before night little remained of Kan- sas City's great auditorium except a mass of broken stones and twisted steel.
Largely by reason of the fact that it possessed such a building, Kansas City had been able to secure the promise that the Democratic National con- vention, to nominate candidates for president and vice-president, should be held in the hall, beginning July 4, 1900. When the news was flashed over the country that Convention hall was in flames, it was at once supposed that Kansas City would have to abandon all thought of entertaining the Demo- cratic National convention, and other cities which had striven for the honor at once began to renew their efforts along that line. The world, however, did not appreciate "the Kansas City spirit," for even while the hall was in flames, a committee was at work securing funds to erect a new building. In less than three hours after the fire was discovered, more than $20,000 had been contributed to the fund of rebuilding. It was felt that the good name of Kansas City was at stake. While the flames were at their hottest, tele-
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grams were sent to the great iron, steel and lumber companies asking them if they could duplicate the material which they had furnished for the orig- inal building. From the Carnegie Steel works came the reply that it would be impossible to furnish the steel girders in the short time before the date of the convention. The committee sent back the message that it did not know what the word "impossible" meant. It was not a question as to what could be done, but as to what must be done. The committee refused to take "no" for an answer from any of the manufacturers and dealers in materials, and by offering a very substantial bonus the great steel works were induced to lay aside other urgent orders and put every man possible to work on the beams and trusses needed to re-construct Convention hall. That there might not be a delay of an hour at any point, the matter of transportation was laid before the president of every railroad which would be interested in hauling the material. When the tons of steel left the factory every car was accompanied by a guard who remained with the car day and night until it reached Kansas City, for the purpose of seeing that the car was handled quickly and properly on all trains and at all junction points. During this time the work of clearing the lot and preparing for re-construction was in progress, but in spite of all the haste that could be made, it was fourteen days after the fire before the site was ready for the actual work of rebuilding.
The citizens of Kansas City and the surrounding country had become aroused to the necessity of the hour, and the committee found subscriptions pouring in from all quarters. The insurance companies came to the rescue quickly and paid their claims, amounting to $150,000, at once and in full. The question of having the hall ready for the Democratic convention was not one of money, but of the ability of man and machinery to accomplish a gigantic task in a brief time. Day and night, week days and Sundays, the work proceeded, and the result was that on the morning of July 4, 1900, just ninety days from the date of the fire, the new Convention hall was opened by the Democratic National convention.
In the face of the necessity of having the structure completed in ninety days, there had not been any opportunity of drawing new plans for a new building, but as the work progressed many changes had been made and in its interior arrangement the new hall was entirely different from that which had been destroyed. There was a decided change in the nature of the, mater- ials used; the wooden floors, balcony supports and roof gave place to floors of concrete, supports of steel and a roof of tile. Everything of a combustible nature which could possibly be omitted from the building was eliminated, and the new Convention hall stands a model of fireproof construction. When the new building was opened, it was practically completed, especially the in- terior. The addition of the handsome terra cotta cornice, the covering of
ichantia Eng Ca:
CONVENTION HALL.
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the rough stone piers with stucco and the finishing of the various details were desirable, but not absolutely necessary, were taken up by the directors as soon as possible, and the result is that Convention hall probably is the most perfect example of a building of its kind in America.
In planning Convention hall the desire was to have a building that would serve satisfactorily the most diversified uses. The experience gained during the short life of the first building brought about some changes in re-building, these changes being especially noticeable in the interior arrange- ment. The seats are arranged in the form of an amphitheatre, with a row of boxes and two balconies which look down on an arena floor, oval in shape. The outside dimensions of the building are 198 feet by 314 feet. The arena floor has 17,750 square feet of surface. As the floor is of concrete laid on solid ground, it forms an excellent foundation for various kinds of enter- tainments. In arranging the building for the horse show, 500 tons of clay were placed on the floor and the earth was rolled with a steam roller, thus affording an excellent ring for showing horses and vehicles. At the conclu- sion of the show the clay was plowed up and carted away. At the conven- tion of National Street Railway association, single pieces of machinery weighing many tons were shown upon the floor. For dancing and roller skating, there is a hard maple floor, made in sections 6x14 feet, and so perfectly constructed that when it is laid it is difficult to see the dividing lines.
Three feet above the arena floor and runing entirely around the oval, are the boxes, sixty-four in number, and each accommodating comfortably eight people. The first balcony, called the "arena balcony," is seated with 5,000 permanent opera chairs. The second balcony, suspended along the two sides of the building, has a capacity of about 2,500; still above this is a flat floor known as the "roof garden," in which by the use of circus seats, about 3,000 people were accommodated during the Democratic National convention. On this "roof garden" are the electric switch boards, controlling all the lights in the building, and the fly gallery, from which the scenery is worked during theatrical performances.
All of these parts of the building may be reached without climbing any stairs, the problem being solved by the use of wide inclined planes. The largest crowd that ever gathered in Convention hall can leave the build- ing within five minutes without difficulty. Under the first balcony and running around the building is a wide passage called "the arcade." In the horse show, stalls were erected for the blooded animals. This space is very valuable during the flower show and other exhibitions, as it can easily be subdivided and effectively decorated. The necessary check stands at balls and similar occasions are erected in the arcade; and, like nearly everything
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else around Convention hall, these check stands are made in sections and when not in use are packed away in a very small space.
The Convention hall is also arranged so as to accommodate large dramatic or musical organizations. It is equipped with a stage made in sections which is 110 feet wide and 60 feet deep. The proscenium, also made in sections, affords a curtain opening fifty feet in width. The stage is supplied with a modern system of lighting, including border lights and foot lights, all controlled from a movable switch board, to which flexible cables are attached. There is also a complete system of dimmers, in the immense gridiron above the stage are eighty sets of lines by which the scenery car- med by any traveling organization can be worked properly. The dressing rooms have ample room for a company of three hundred persons. When the full stage is erected and the hall is arranged for an operatic or dramatic performance, the seating capacity is reduced to 6,000, but so perfect are the acoustic properties that it is possible to hear singers and speakers in all parts of the building while the absence of posts leaves an unobstructed view of the stage. The hall has been the scene of the triumphs of many indi- vidual artists, orchestras and bands; there Adelina Patti sang to an audience which completely filled the building and Paderewski played to his largest audience. Many men of national reputation have addressed great gatherings in Convention hall. One of the hall's most important uses is at the festivi- ties of the Priests of Pallas, when the great society and public balls are given there.
In the great flood of 1903 the hall was opened as a place of refuge for those, driven by the rising waters from their homes, and 1,500 people were temporarily fed and quartered under its roof. The building then served as headquarters of the relief committee during the entire summer, all food, clothing and household goods being distributed from it.
Convention hall cost nearly $400,000, with additional sums for the original cost of the ground and furniture and fixtures bringing the total value of the property to one-half million dollars. The property is owned by a corporation, the Kansas City Convention Hall company, the stock in the company being held by those, who subscribed to the building fund. The par value of the stock is $1.00. There are about 8,000 stock holders, but this stock is not intended, nor is it held, as an investment. All the money that is earned by the building is put back into the necessary repairs or permanent improvements. The property is in charge of a board of thirteen directors, prominent business men who are elected annually by the, stockholders and who serve without pay.
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The seating capacity is a variable quantity, inasmuch as movable chairs are used on the arena floor and in some other parts of the house. As many as 15,000 people can be accommodated comfortably, while the capacity of the hall can be cut down to as low as 1,800 if required.
The construction of a new general hospital, completed in the summer of 1908, was an important municipal project. The general hospital is a charit- able institution under the management of the city. It had its beginning in 1870 in a small frame building at Twenty-second street and McCoy avenue. In 1875 there were three frame structures with inferior accommodations for seventy-five patients. A brick building was erected in 1884 with provisions for forty additional patients. The city council appropriated $250,000 in 1895 ยท for hospital improvements. A frame building used for smallpox patients was destroyed and a two-story brick building constructed on the site. The original brick hospital building was remodeled in 1897 at an expense of $7,000, and in the rear was erected a clinical amphitheater with seats for 150 students. The city spent $3,500 in 1899 in erecting a one-story brick building for pa- tients suffering with tuberculosis and other infectious diseases, with accom- modations for forty-five. The capacity of the old city hospital was 175, but frequently 200 or more patients were crowded into it.
These are the main facts about Kansas City's new general hospital, com- pleted in 1908: The building cost approximately $425,000; the land on which it stands was given by Thomas H. Swope; the building is five stories high, built of gray brick, laid in white mortar. The structure is fireproof : the floors are hardwood, laid on concrete and the window sills marble. The corners on the floor are round; the hospital faces west on Robert Gillham road, where the thoroughfare broadens into a parkway. Twenty-third street is on the north side of the building, Twenty-fourth on the south, and Me- Coy avenue on the east. To the right of the main entrance is a bronze tablet with these words: "Because of his love for his fellowman, Thomas H. Swope gave to the people of Kansas City the site of these buildings." A bronze tablet on the left of the main entrance bears this inscription : "Built by the people, of Kansas City-her officials, her physicians. her architects, her artisans-each doing his part with loving thought of the good uses of these buildings."
The hospital building has ten "sun parlors" where convalescents may find relief from the melancholy "atmosphere" of the various wards. In these little parlors the patients come under the cheering influence of the sunshine and have a broader view of the outdoors. The patients who are able to walk are taken to these rooms in comfortable wheeled chairs with rubber tires.
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Air is washed and dried before it enters the wards. The ventilating system is arranged so that it will not be necessary at any time to open a window; thus drafts will be avoided. The wards have a constant supply of pure air at the desired temperature. Two fans, sixteen feet in diameter, pump each minute 57,000 cubic feet of air into the building. The air enters the building through shafts in the walls of the second and third story. Passing through a long shaft, the air enters the "washer" where it is forced through a spray of water. By this process, it is cleansed of dust and germs. From the "washer" the air passes into the "dryer," a strong solution of lime. Hot coils absorb the water extracted. The air enters the wards through "registers," high on the walls, that are controlled auto- matically. In summer time the air will be cooled and in winter it will be heated. The building is heated by hot blast and steam, the degree of warmth being regulated by thermostats.
CHAPTER XXIV.
REVIVAL OF RIVER TRANSPORTATION.
As early as 1857, the wharfmaster's report showed that more than 700 boats landed at the port of Kansas City in one year. This was before the ad- vent of the railroads. Steamboat traffic decreased in the Civil war, followed by a revival in the latter '60s. The Missouri river, affording the best means of transportation between St. Louis and Kansas City in the early days, carried an important commerce. The freight rates were high and the boats made money, notwithstanding a recklessness in the matter of expenditures.
In his history of the Missouri river, Phil. E. Chappel speaks of travel upon the river as follows: "The first navigator on the Missouri river was the little blue-winged teal; the next the Indian, with his canoe; then came the half-civilized French Canadian voyageur, with his pirogue, paddling up- stream or cordelling around the swift points. At a later day came the fur- trader, with his keel-boat; still later there came up from below the little "dingey"-the single-engine, one-boiler steamboat. At last the evolution was complete and there came the magnificent passenger steamer of the '50s, the floating palace of the palmy days of steamboating, combining in her construc- tion every improvement that experience had suggested or the ingenuity of man had devised to increase the speed or add to the safety and comfort of the pas- senger."
E. C. ELLIS.
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The railroads with more regular and rapid service and with more system- atic and economical management, were able to meet the water rates, and the fact that the boat owners did not grasp the needs of the situation and reduce expenses in order to lower rates, helped to establish the railroads as the carriers of the bulk of the freight. The rates made by the railroads were lower at that time than they are now. As commerce began to leave the Missouri river, rail- road rates advanced until Kansas City business men felt the necessity of seek- ing relief by restoring river transportation.
The history of the persistent and long continued efforts of the leading citizens and capitalists of Kansas City to secure for the city the benefits of river navigation is interesting, not alone on account of its importance, but as showing the patient perseverance that characterizes the business men in Kan- sas City. As soon as the decline of steamboating on the Missouri river became apparent, the residents of Kansas City began urging the necessity of estab- lishing a barge line between Kansas City and St. Louis. The panic of 1873 interfered with the project.
One of the first acts of the Committee of Commerce of the Board of Trade in 1879 was to petition Congress for an appropriation to improve the Missouri river. A party of United States engineers, under the direction of J. W. Nier, arrived in Kansas City in May, 1879, and began the work of improving the Missouri river a few miles north of the city, an appropriation of $30,000 hav- ing been made for that purpose. The navigation of the Missouri river by barges which had been successfully begun in 1878 was abandoned on account of the railroad war that temporarily reduced freight rates. Before the project was abandoned, however, the Star Packet line had made arrangements to op- erate one barge with each of its packets, and another company had caused a tug and tow to be built especially for the Missouri river traffic.
A barge line company with a capital of $100,000 was organized in Kan- sas City in 1880, and one boat and four barges were purchased for use on the Missouri river. But because of lack of business the barge fleet was transferred to the Mississippi river. A river improvement convention was held in St. Louis, Mo., in October, 1881. It was attended by delegates from Kansas City and other cities in the Missouri river valley. A similar river improvement convention was held in St. Joseph, Mo., in November, 1881. Various attempts were made to revive river navigation in the '80s. T. B. Bullene and Colonel Theodore S. Case went to Washington, from Kansas City in January, 1888, as delegates to the Western Waterways convention. The two delegates urged the necessity of an appropriation sufficient to place the Missouri river in a navigable condition.
The Kansas City & Missouri River Packet company was incorporated un- der the laws of Missouri, with a paid up capital of $132,500, in Feburary, 1890.
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This company was organized for the purpose of navigating the Missouri with commercial freight carriers. The following were the incorporators: A. L. Mason, Thomas Corrigan, Adam Long, J. F. Richards, A. R. Meyer, E. A. Phillips, S. B. Armour, A. W. Armour, A. K. Ruxton, T. B. Bullene, J. F. Corle, P. H. Soden, and F. S. Treadway.
The company built three boats known as the A. L. Mason, State of Kan- sas and State of Missouri. The steamer A. L. Mason was brought into the Missouri river in July, 1891, and continued in service in the spring and sum- mer trade until the close of navigation in 1894. The boat then was loaded at St. Louis for New Orleans, but met with an accident near Friars Point, Miss., that resulted in total destruction. The boat had a cargo of about twelve hun- dred tons when it was destroyed. The steamer State of Kansas was used in the Ohio and Mississippi rivers more than in the Missouri, although it made sev- eral trips here before the company sold it to Captain T. B. Simms of St. Louis, in 1893. The boat was kept in service about two years by Captain Simms, when he sold it. Later the boat was destroyed by fire. The steamer State of Missouri was used in the Ohio river trade as long as the company owned it and finally was purchased by a packet company with headquarters in Cin- cinnati, O.
The conditions that confronted the Kansas City & Missouri River Packet company, both in Kansas City and in St. Louis, in regard to unfair railroad competition, were such that it was impossible to make the boats pay expenses. The steamer State of Missouri was sold to pay debts that were by the packet company incurred almost at the outset. The losses incurred in operating the other two steamboats on account of unfair railroad competition, became so great that the company was compelled to sell the steamer State of Kansas. This left only one boat clear of indebtedness. The last two years it was in operation it was kept in the service very largely by voluntary contributions of the Kansas City shippers, who realized that as long as the company ex- isted and had one or more boats in service that freight rates would be lower. When the steamer A. L. Mason was destroyed, the company ceased operations. The company had operated boats more or less regularly for about four years. The Kansas City & Missouri River Packet company, in its brief career, caused freight rates to be lowered, and for this reason is not regarded as a failure. The experiment established the fact that water competition existed at Kansas City and that the railroads must meet it.
Nothing further was done toward navigating the Missouri river until September, 1906. Congressman E. C. Ellis of the Fifth District of Missouri and a member of the Rivers and Harbors committee of Congress, called a meeting of the representative citizens and members of the principal commer- cial bodies of Kansas City, Mo., and Kansas City, Kas., July 30, 1906, for the
LAWRENCE M. JONES.
2974 Danson
Sep. 24.00.
ARRIVAL OF THE LORA AT KANSAS CITY. 1896, ON THE RE- SUMPTION OF TRAFFIC ON THE MISSOURI RIVER.
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purpose of organizing an association that would encourage navigation on the Missouri river. In this capacity, Congressman Ellis acted as a representative of the National Rivers and Harbors congress, a great non-political organiza- tion that has accomplished much toward the improvement of the waterways of our country.
It was due very largely to Congressman Ellis and the other members of the Rivers and Harbors committee of Congress that the Missouri Valley Im- provement association was formed. At the instance of Congressman Ellis, three other members of his committee accompanied him from Washington to Kansas City where they addressed two meetings in the rooms of the Commer- cial club, urging two propositions upon the people of the Missouri valley : one that they support the national movement as represented by the National Riv- ers and Harbors congress, and the other that they organize a live working association to look after the interests of the Missouri river in the national movement.
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