The History of Jackson county, Missouri, containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, etc., biographical sketches of its citizens, Jackson county in the late warhistory of Missouri, map of Jackson county, Part 62

Author: Union Historical Company
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Kansas City, Mo. : Union historical company
Number of Pages: 1068

USA > Missouri > Jackson County > The History of Jackson county, Missouri, containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, etc., biographical sketches of its citizens, Jackson county in the late warhistory of Missouri, map of Jackson county > Part 62

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HISTORY OF KANSAS CITY.

erected, coal mines opened, and all the wants of the country in iron ore and agricultural implements supplied by the mechanics of this region itself. Startling as this information may seem, it is nevertheless true, and there now exists in this " unexplored region" the nucleus of a powerful and self-sustaining State, larger than many of the ruling States of Europe. Regular communication is kept up through this region between Great Salt Lake and Lower California, and while Congress has sent out party after party by the 48th, 41st, 35th and 32d parallel routes, this great interior region has been neglected until our overland traffic with the Pacific has become endangered by the fact of settlement itself; and we are this season debarred from our California trade in apprehension that Mormon hostility may cut off our herds and trains on this portion of the route which they have so silently appropriated.

"The mountains of this region are no obstruction, being isolated spurs, with no regular ranges, and traversed in all directions by valleys of luxuriant vegeta- tion. The country can be traveled freely, in all directions, with the utmost facility, as far west as the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada. Of the route west of this range to the Pacific, it is not our purpose to speak; as, happily, the energy of the American people in the development of California has relieved your memorialists of the task of showing its practicability.

" We have thus sketched, rapidly, the features of these separate divisions of the true central route, relying more upon our own knowledge of its character, gained from long acquaintance with it in trade and commerce, rather than from authorities which might be cited, but which would swell this memorial beyond its original intent. We know the route because we use it; and we know its eminent advantages, for we have found its profit.

"We will close this memorial by considering the most important feature, prac- tically, in the solution of this railway question :

THE MOUNTAIN DIVISION AND PASSES.

" The mountain ranges between Missouri and California are, in the estima- tion of many, a wild, desolate, terra incognita, unexplored and incapable of ex- ploration; covered with perpetual snows, and forming midway between the Mississippi and Pacific, a cordon not to be surmounted, and holding in their fast solitudes secrets never to be revealed by science. This idea owes its existence to several causes, one of which is, that all of our explorations were first made in the higher northern latitudes, by Lewis and Clarke, and the American Fur Company's traders and voyageurs. We had then no possessions south of Astoria, and no trade with what is now our Golden State, and with the northern States of Mexico to draw our citizens to the southward. But within the past twenty years, since the settlement of western Missouri, a trade has gradually grown up between Missouri and the valleys of New Mexico, which trade has produced among us a class of men who have been the pioneers of modern exploration and discovery. Aubry, Carson and Leroux, are men educated by the trade to which we allude. We use their names, because more notoriety has been attached to them than others, from the fact of their being employed by the Government as guides. But it must not be supposed that they constitute all of their class. We have among us hundreds of men who are as intimately acquainted with the great interior of our country as any named, and as regards the central portions, much better; for it is with the mountaineers, as with all other men, they know the country in which their lives have been passed, and no more. These men, whom the Government so well know, are unacquainted with any portion of the mountains except those parts and those routes over which their traffic has been carried on.

" The Mormons, when their exodus from Missouri and Illinois was made, passed along the route of the Fur Company, as the only route then known, to the headwaters of the Platte, and by the South Pass, to their present locality. This

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route was known because it was at a latitude, and was in the country of the beaver and other fur bearing animals, which are not to be found to the south- ward. It was not that the South Pass was the only pass in the mountains, but because it was in the fur region, and by the pursuit of that traffic was discovered. When 'California was opened up, the overland emigration took that route simply because it was known, and not because it was preferable. The necessity of a better, shorter and more congenial route, directed our attention further south, and instead of finding the mountains the impassable barriers which had been sup- posed, we find them to be, in many respects, the best and most desirable portions of the route to California; cut up in all directions with valleys, and supplied in fabulous abundance with grass, water and timber.

"We have been thus explicit in this portion of our memorial, in order that the theory of interior discovery might be properly understood. Because all the discoveries of any merit that have been achieved, since the time of Lewis and Clarke, have been made by and through the necessities of the commercial opera- tions of the interior. It is true, government explorations have given us a more technical topographic knowledge of the country shown by 'guides'; but that any 'discoveries' have been made, or any new country added, to what was before known, we must frankly say nothing of the kind has been done, if we ex- cept Fremont and Beale, whose explorations were made, in part, as private expeditions.

"It was thus that the various 'passes' were discovered and became celebrated, and this brings us to the consideration of this part of the railway ques- tion-one which elicited more controversy than all others connected with the topographic portion of the question, and one to which, in the opinion of your memorialists, an undue importance has been attached, and which promises to work more prejudice to the location of a Pacific Railway than all other questions combined.

" In order to present this subject properly we must be allowed to go back of the term itself for its explanation, and give its fixed and technical meaning, for, to western men, engaged in overland traffic, a 'pass' has a peculiar and restrict- ed significance which must be understood.

"Our commerce is carried on principally by heavy wagons, carrying from two and a half to three tons each, and drawn by ten or twelve mules or oxen. This, too, is over a country where a road has never been constructed, a bridge built, or a hillside cut down to afford a track ; and these wagons have not only to traverse the plains thus, but they have also to cross the mountains thus. In order to cross our wagons, we are not solicitous as regards the greatest depressions in those mountain ranges; what we desire is a practicable wagon way, not cut up by deep ravines crossing those depressions, or interlocking in the gorges, but an un- broken ascent, that carries with it over the mountain the features of the plain below-and when this is found it is a 'pass.' This peculiar formation is always at greater altitudes than that of the watercourses, over whose abrupt chasms our oxen and wagons cannot pass, but which, in many instances, can be crossed by bridges of from ten to twenty feet span. There are numberless depressions of this latter character of no serious obstructions to the locomotive, much shorter and lower in grade than any 'pass' known to be practicable for the passage of wagons, and can be found in all parts of the Rocky Mountains, and on any parallel.

" We ask a comparison of the commerce of the western with the commerce of the eastern mountains, before the construction of roads. ' Where, in the Alle- ghany country, was ever such a spectacle presented in its natural state, as wag- ons carrying three tons, performing a journey of two thousand miles, without cutting a stick or digging a road way for their passage, and crossing that range of mountains on their route? The fact that this has been done, and is now accom-

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plished every year in this far western region, presents a topographical argument in favor of the country, of more significance and value than any theory connected with barometrical readings or mountain elevations.

"The most celebrated 'Passes' are the South Pass, Coochatope, and the passes lying west of Auton Chico, near the 42d, 39th and 35th parallels. The South Pass and its discovery we have given. Those west of Auton Chico lie contiguous to the old Spanish settlements of Northern Mexico, and have been known for a longer period than the South Pass. Coochatope became celebrated by the disastrous expedition of Fremont, in 1848-9. Since that time it has been set down as impracticable, notwithstanding Fremont, in 1853, and Gunnison, in 1854, have since proved that the disaster was owing to the false information of a pretended guide, and that the pass is not only practicable, but eligible. But even in its vicinity are several depressions much lower than the 'Pass' itself, and which Gunnison explicitly refers to in his exploration. But there are other passes north of this, and far south of the South Pass, that are better than any of those named, and which our traders and drovers have used for years, and through which annually go and come our trains and caravans, to the Great Basin and California. One, particularly, which we know as Goodale's Pass, is not a mere wagon road of great elevation, or a depression in the chest of the mountain range, but a wide opening in the mountain, with water courses flowing gently through its rich meadows, and that is crossed without a knowledge of the fact, save from observation of the direction of the streams. This is our route of traffic, and which we fearlessly challenge exploration and investigation to establish.

"We conceive we have just cause of complaint that this country has not met with that attention from Congress, which its great merits, as a practicable route, demands, leaving out entirely its geographical superiority. There is no question as to the practicability of the eastern slope, in any direction from the mouth of the Kansas, either by the Laramie Plains, the South Fork of the Platte, the Smoky Hill Fork of the Kansas, and the Huerfano by the way of Santa Fe.

"This latter route is the best wagon road, of equal length, in the world ; from the mouth of the Kansas to Santa Fe, 760 miles, over which, from this city, go annually from 6,000 to 10,000 heavily laden wagons, and over which the U. S. mail is carried with more regularity than between Boston and Washington, having failed but twice to arrive at schedule time, winter or summer. for eight years, as the records of the Postoffice Department will show. Yet the Govern- ment has expended hundreds of thousands of dollars on military roads in other localities, but has never expended a dollar on this great route of travel and com- merce ; and its present excellence is owing to the road making power. of the wheels that pass over it. We have thus, in the face of government explorations and the 'impracticable' verdicts of officials, worn a road superior to any yet con- structed or discovered. Still we are told, by men who never saw the plains, that this route, too, is 'impracticable.'

" But there is, in the opinion of your memorialists, a reason for this that Congress should understand. The system of explorations pursued by the Govern. ment has been for practical results in discovery, greatly restricted by the system of instructions. Thus, a company of engineers is sent out to explore, having their course marked out by instructions, from which they are not at liberty to de- viate. Cardinal points, in these instructions, are the 'passes' of which we have spoken.

"This, in the expedition of Capt. Gunnison, when he crossed the mountains on the 38th parallel, instead of following that line west, through the country we have described in this memorial, was by his instructions, carried almost directly north, to the 4Ist parallel, which resulted in setting down the 39th as ' impracti- cable,' a rocky, barren, woodless, waterless desert ; when we annually drive sheep and cattle over it, which we calculate on fattening on the route, and which we do

HISTORY OF KANSAS CITY. 459

fatten, by providing them with grass and water in abundance every night; and sheep only travel ten miles per day. It is not tangent lines of exploration that can discover the practicable crossings of the mountains, but lateral surveys along either base, and following the valleys and water courses, which, on every parallel, divide and break those unknown ranges; and never until this is done, in the opinion of this chamber, can the question of the most eligible passage of the mountains be made satisfactory to Congress. For now, that the question of con- struction is seriously entertained, it is time the 'pass' feature should be reduced to its legitimate topographical importance. Instead of controlling the location of so great a national work as a Pacific Railway, by diverting it from four to seven degrees of latitude from its true course, the fact of their superior elevation to water courses should be known; for we confidently assert that a few short bridges, even culverts, and a few cuts, that are nothing in railway engineering, will pass the mountains, at several points, at a lower grade, than by any 'pass' known to public explorers.

"We assert what we know to be the truth, that in the Pacific Railroad al -. ready constructed by the State of Missouri, have as formidable obstacles been overcome as are to be met with on the central or 39th parallel route, from the border of Missouri to California.

"We have shown that the Rocky Mountains are less an obstruction than the Alleghanies, and it only remains for us to speak of the Sierra Nevada. They can be crossed by the Carson Valley, or, bearing north, by the Sacramento, or south by the San Joaquin, through the route passed by Fremont in 1853.

"The fact of a railway being already talked of between California and Carson Valley, is sufficient to establish its practicability in the minds of the people who know the route.

"Through the Sacramento valley pours annually the tide of trade and travel by the south pass, and by Walker's lake and San Joaquin go, each season, our herds of cattle and sheep, and which find open valley to the southward into the southern portions of California. But even did not these exist, would the Govern- ment of the United States be justified in locating the railroad from the Pacific from 300 to 500 miles south or north of the true line to avoid an obstacle less than the State of Massachusetts is now removing by her Hoosic tunnel, in order to shorten her connections by a few miles. This, even on the showing of the opponents of the Kansas Valley route, is all that is to be done-one tunnel and its approaches, by deep cuttings, in 'all only two miles, will overcome the only obstacle on a line of 2,000 miles of railway-and yet men are to be found who talk of 'impracticability' of country of this extent, of which its bitterest enemies .can say nothing worse.

" We can not believe that the location of the Pacific Railroad can be con- summated on either of the extreme routes in the face of these facts, especially when their verification is so easily attainable. But resting upon the geographical justness of the route by the Kansas Valley-its equity to the whole country-its connection 500 miles farther west with railways already built and in progress-the fact of its being but an extension of all the great lines of railway already con- structed-in view of any other route, forcing upon the country the reconstruction or doubling of their present lines, its great agricultural advantages, its woods, water, coal and stone, as well as its latitude, the most favorable on the continent for the working of railway machinery. We submit this memorial to the consider- ation of Congress."

Trusten Polk, senator from Missouri, and John S. Phelps, member of the house, opposed this central route and sought to have it located from Memphis, Tennessee, and up the valley of the Canadian River. James S. Green, the other Missouri senator favored Missouri's interests.

After much discussion the south and the north found that neither was able

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to get its favorite route, and finally, in January, 1861, the House passed a bill amended by motion of Gen. James Craig, of the St. Joseph district of Missouri, creating two branches, one from Kansas City and one from St. Joseph, which were to unite one hundred miles west and proceed by the most favorable route. This idea was substantially followed in the bill that finally became a law in 1862.

OUR LOCAL ROADS AGAIN.

But to return to local enterprises. A delegation of the Missouri Pacific com- pany came to Kansas City August 11th, 1859, to ask a change in the form of the subscriptions of Jackson county, and Independence and Kansas City, so as to make it immediately available for the construction of the road, and promising to have it finished the following spring. This promise aroused the greatest enthusi- asm in Kansas City.

The Hannibal & St. Joseph road had been completed and put in operation March Ist, to St. Joseph, which was, therefore, that much ahead, and the effect was feared. The County Court was induced to submit the proposition. There was opposition to it in the county, and there ensued a lively campaign. The elec- tion occurred on the 2d of September, and the night before there was a meeting in Kansas City, which best expressed the feelings of the community at the time. As soon as it was dark, a large portion of the buildings on Main street were illu. minated, the greatest display being made in the vicinity of the place appointed for the meeting. Conspicuous over all were the flags and banners of the Metropolitan office, suspended over the street. In front of the building was a full railroad train, of locomotive, tender and two passenger cars, which were handsomely illu- minated, while the smoke from the engine stack poured forth in a constant cloud; on the "cow catcher" was a poor old fogy, who, being unable to "get out of the way," had been mercilessly impaled upon the car of progress.

But the grand feature of the evening was the procession from McGee's Addi- tion. That live locality never made a failure. At half past seven o'clock the procession was seen turning the bend of the street at the Union Hotel, headed by the consolidated bands of the city, led by Professors Banta and Jenny, torches blazing and transparencies dispersed at intervals in the long line of enthusiastic voters. At this point it was met by the procession from the north part of the city, when the combined delegations under the direction of Capt. Boarman, chief marshal, aided by Messrs. Francis Foster and S. Thompson, moved down Main street to the levee.

Just as the procession had passed out of sight from the square, the music to the south announced the coming of the Westport delegation, headed by the splen- did band of Prof. Hunter, under the charge of Sam Justice, in the Westport. 'bus, followed by a procession of carriages and horsemen. As they filed into the square where the meeting was to be held, they were hailed with cheer upon cheer, which being caught up by the hundreds there assembled, made the welkin ring.

At the election the next day the proposition was carried by a vote of 2, 142 for, to 860 against, every precinct, except Kansas City and Westport, giving a majority against it.

On the 11th of September, 1858, a meeting was held in Paola, Kan., to take steps to secure a railroad to Kansas City.

In October a large meeting at Des Moines, Iowa, started the project of the Des Moines & Kansas City Railroad.

A GREAT RAILROAD CONVENTION.

On the 22nd and 23d of November, 1858, a great railroad convention was held at Kansas City for the purpose of uniting the people of the adjacent country on the lines proposed by this city, and so concentrating interest as to further their

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construction. It was attended by delegates from Independence, Westport, Wyandotte, Osawatomie, Paola, Shawnee, Olathe, Lawrence, Lecompton, Manhattan, Kansapolis, Mandovi, St. George and Delaware crossing.

O. C. Brown, of Osawatomie, was President; E. C. McCarty, of Kansas City, J. A. J. Chapman, of St. George, W. Roy, of Shawnee, N. Scarritt, of Westport, Wm. Chick, of Westport, Wm. Gilpin, of Independence, B. F. Simp- son, of Paola, J. T. Barton, of Olathe, J. B. Chapman, of Maudovi; J. P. Roote, of Wyandotte, and J. H. Young, of Manhattan, were Vice-Presidents. The committee on resolutions was composed of J. C. Groom, F. W. Crane, K. Coates, J. P. Root, John McCarty, R. T. Van Horn, J. A. J. Chapman, Dr. Johnston Lykins, W. C. Claiborne, W. Chestnut, J. B. Chapman, W. Heberton, and Thos. A. Smart.

The following resolutions proposed by Col. Van Horn, were adopted :

Whereas, We believe the time to have arrived when measures for the im- mediate construction of a great Continental Railway, uniting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, should be inaugurated by the Congress of the United States ; and

Whereas, The valley of the Kansas River is situated on the central geo- graphical line of the continent and the Union, we are in favor of the route by the valley-and in support of our position we urge the following reasons :

I. We adopt the premises that facilities for construction being equal, it is the duty of the Government to construct said road upon the most central route, as by so doing all parts of the Union would receive more equal benefit.

2. The Lake of the Woods, on the 49th parallel, and Galveston, on the 29th parallel, may be taken as the extreme northern and southern boundaries of the central portion of the Republic, thus making the 39th parallel the center, on which parallel is the valley of the Kansas River.

3. The route for the Continental Railway seems to be marked out by nature-and embraces a series of central valleys traversing the continent, viz : the valleys of the Potomac, the Ohio, the Missouri, the Kansas, the Colorado, the Nicolett and San Joaquin.

That on this route there are already constructed 1, 238 miles of railroad, 4. upon which the locomotives are now running; 175 miles of which are west of the Mississippi, and is being prosecuted as rapidly as the work will admit, by the State of Missouri, to the mouth of the Kansas River, making 1, 315 miles of the great Continental Railway, built by the unaided energies of the people inhabiting these central valleys-or one-half the road.

5. The construction of said railroad by this route would disturb none of the existing centers of trade, but leave the great maritime cities of the Union in the same relative positions which they now occupy, as the following will show : From the mouth of the Kansas River to New York it is 1, 316 miles; to Phila- delphia, 1,285 miles; to Baltimore, 1, 108 miles; to Charleston, 1,010 miles; to New Orleans, 980. It will thus be seen that most of our principal seaboad cities can reach the mouth of the Kansas River by lines nearly equal in length; thus maintaining in regard to the trade of the Pacific, the same relative positions, advantages and disadvantages now possessed or afforded them by natural position, climate and facilities for ocean and interior commerce.

6. That we can see no propriety in the construction of said road on the 48th parallel, its whole length skirted by the possessions of a foreign power; or on the 32d parallel, on the borders of a State with which we have been at war, and with which only a quasi peace has been maintained for the past twenty years. But that the great object in the construction of such railway should be to connect the two oceans, and afford a military road accessible from all portions of the Union for the protection of all its parts.

7. A railway on either of the extreme routes named, would run entirely outside of the government forts, away from the Indian tribes, and away from the

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routes of emigration, travel and commerce, and away from all interests of the country needing protection.

8. By any other route the people would have to go back over a country where population has neither demanded nor constructed railways, and rebuild over five hundred miles of railway, already constructed, and in progress, before the locomotive could reach its present western station in the wake of population and trade.

9. It is unjust thus to re tax the means and energies of the people to the extent of 30,000, 000 to 50, 000, 000, to secure commercial facilities that they have already provided. By the selection of another route, it would force upon the country the reconstruction of their entire railway system, or of doubling its ex- tent in order to reach the great channel of continental commerce and transpor- tation. Therefore,

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The History of Jackson county, Missouri, containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, etc., biographical sketches of its citizens, Jackson county in the late warhistory of Missouri, map of Jackson county, Part 62

Author: Union Historical Company Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Kansas City, Mo. : Union historical company Number of Pages: 1068

Author: Union Historical Company
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Kansas City, Mo. : Union historical company
Number of Pages: 1068