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 83
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When railroads began to be extended westward from the Mississippi river, the facts above stated had already caused the development at Kansas City of so large a trade as to make it an attractive point for them, besides which the natural facilities for trade beyond Kansas City made it almost necessary for them to come here to connect with the trade of the plains and mountains. In addition to this, they could reach Kansas City on water grades, which made it cheaper and easier to build and operate the roads. No such advantages could be secured by seeking other places. These facts controlled their direction.
In the construction of roads to the westward a similar state of facts existed. In the first place, there was a trade already established, and in the second place there were water grades. Therefore, Congress, in fixing the eastern terminus and route of the great Pacific Railroad, fixed it at Kansas City, and defined its route as the existing route of trade.
Again, when Southern Kansas was settled the Kansas River was found to be a great barrier between the people and the river cities of their own State, while Kansas City, located at the mouth of that stream, was accessible to them. The same facts had previously concentrated here the trade of the Indians, after their removal to the west. This brought the trade to Kansas City, and railroads have been constructed to accommodate it. So great were these natural advantages that the disturbed condition of society during the war, and the depredations of thieves and bush whackers upon the trade of Kansas City could not entirely drive trade to other places. And so soon as this unnatural order of things passed away the trade fell naturally into its old channels.
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When the stock growers of Texas began to seek a market for their cattle they soon found Kansas City the nearest point to their herding grounds at which they could avail themselves of competing rates to eastern markets.
When beef packers, attracted by the cheapness of Texas cattle, sought an adjacent point for packing purposes, they found Kansas City the nearest point to the source of supply where adequate transportation and banking facilities were available.
The location of the packers here, together with the necessity of re-shipping the cattle here, brought into existence a market for Texas cattle, which in its turn brought here the product of cattle and hogs of the adjacent country, and created the live-stock market.
The directions of the railroads, as determined by the facts above stated, ex- isting at the time of their construction, made Kansas City the gateway through which all merchandise going into the country west of her, and for all grain prod- ucts 'going to market, must pass. The fact that one system of railroads was pro- jected to Kansas City and another beyond made this the terminal point for both and rendered re-shipment necessary. These facts have greatly stimulated the jobbing trade which had already grown out of the outfitting of freighters and the supplying of immigrants, and have called into existence here the grain market.
It is a well established policy with railroads to make such rates as will con- trol, as far as possible, the shipment of freight to their termini instead of allow- ing it to be switched off to other roads at intermediate stations. It is also a well established policy with railroads to make rates for long distances proportionately less than short. These facts make Kansas City a preferred point by all the rail- roads, because it is their termini, which is a great advantage over any other place in the Missouri Valley, and secure to her such favorable rates to and from the Atlantic cities, that she is able to maintain a higher range of prices in her markets than any other place in the valley, while she can supply merchandise at lower prices. These facts have greatly stimulated her markets and her trade.
These latter are existing facts that for the future give Kansas City a controll- ing position, as they have done in the past, and will remain so as long as railroads continue to be managed as they are now.
But there must come a time when better regulations will be established and the present confused and arbitrary changing of rates abolished. When such a change takes place, the new system cannot but embrace a reasonable allowance of profit on their business. Then roads that can be most cheaply operated will be the cheapest roads to commerce. These will of course be the water grade roads. In that situation Kansas City will be still the possessor of superior ad- vantages, as she has two water grade roads to the Mississippi River, two to the Rocky Mountains, two to the north to Sioux City and Omaha, and two to the south, which, owing to the topography of the country, are equal to water grade roads.
THE LESSONS OF HISTORY.
The facts narrated in this history impress two important lessons. The first of these is that, in a free country like America, commerce establishes its own capitals, and that in doing so it is governed by natural laws as fixed and immuta- ble as the laws governing the manifestation of physical phenomena. The pur- pose of commerce is primarily to make profits for those engaging in it, and the profit being fixed the less the exertion and hazard of making it the better, or the exertion and hazard being fixed the greater the profit the better. The tendency of commerce, therefore, is to accomplish its purposes in the speediest and easiest way, and when left free it invariably finds and accepts that way. In other words, motion follows the line of least resistance, which is the great physical law to which commerce no less than all other kinds of movement is subservient. The second of these lessons is that, a people active and united for common purposes,
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and possessing equal advantages are far more likely to succeed than a people who are divided or inactive. Nay, they may, and often do overcome even superior advantages. This is illustrated in a most marked degree in the efforts of the people of Kansas City at the close of the war of the rebellion. Prior to that time, they had great natural advantages which made her well nigh invincible by any rivalry. But at that time her trade had been dissipated and her people driven away by the facts and exigencies of war. A new era was dawning in which the railroad was to succeed the steamboat and wagon as a means of transportation and travel. The advantage was now with her rivals, except that she was situated at the junction of water grades, which were not then appreciated as they are now. At this juncture her people became united again, notwithstanding the acerbities of war from which they had so recently emerged, and by promptness, vigor and sagacity, secured the advantages others thought they had already in their hands. Kansas City has but to preserve this unity of action to acquire the trade of the whole trans-Missouri country west to Arizona and south to Mexico.
THE POSITION AND TRADE OF THE CITY.
Kansas City is the largest city between St. Louis and San Francisco, having double the population of any other.
She is the undisputed metropolis of the New West, embracing western Mis- souri, Kansas, southwestern Iowa and southern Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico and northern Texas.
She is the financial center of that vast region, its banks keeping their depos- its in her banks and drawing their exchange upon them.
Her jobbing merchants supply this entire country with merchandise.
She has the only live stock market west of St. Louis-a market that ranks as second or third in the United States, and where the hogs and cattle of the country mentioned are marketed.
She has the largest packing business west of St. Louis, and the largest cattle packing business in the world.
She is the grain market for all the country mentioned, and is the best winter wheat market in the United States, and she has the only grain market west of St. Louis where grain is sold on call.
HER RAILROAD SYSTEM.
Her railroad system is as follows :
First-The Missouri Pacific, from St. Louis to Kansas City.
Second-The Missouri Pacific to Leavenworth and Atchison, connecting with the Central Branch of the Union Pacific, for northern and northwestern Kansas, and the Atchison & Nebraska for Lincoln and Columbus, Nebraska.
Third-The Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific, for St. Louis, Toledo and Chicago.
Fourth-The Hannibal & St. Joseph, from Kansas City to Chicago over the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, from Quincy.
Fifth-The Chicago & Alton Railroad, for St. Louis and Chicago.
Sixth-The Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, for Chicago.
Seventh-The Kansas City, St. Joseph & Council Bluffs, to Omaha, Sioux City and St. Paul.
Eighth-The Union Pacific, to Denver, Salt Lake and San Francisco. It connects with the Colorado system of railroads, which it controls, except the Denver and Rio Grande.
Ninth-The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, to Pueblo and Canon City, Colorado, Santa Fe, New Mexico and California cities, by the Central Pacific.
Tenth-The Kansas City, Lawrence & Southern Kansas to Coffeyville, Win- field and Wellington.
Eleventh-The Kansas City, Fort Scott & Gulf road, to Baxter Springs, Joplin and Springfield.
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Twelfth-Kansas City & Eastern, to Lexington, Mo.
Thirteenth-The Missouri Pacific (M. K. & T. Branch), via Pleasant Hill for Galveston, Houston and intermediate Texas points.
FAST FREIGHT AND STEAMSHIP LINES.
The following named fast freight lines have agents located here soliciting business for them : Star Union and National, Great Western Dispatch, Erie and Pacific Dispatch, Canada Southern, Merchants' Dispatch, Continental, White Line. Blue Line, Southshore Line, Commercial Express and the Midland.
The following named steamship lines have agencies here and contract for freight to Europe at this point : National, White Star, Great Western, Guion, Cunard, Inman, Anchor, State, Wilson's, Hamburg, American Packet Company, North German Lloyd, White Cross, Netherlands, American, of New York, Montreal and New Orleans, Red Star and American, of Philadelphia.
AS A MANUFACTURING CENTER.
As a manufacturing center, Kansas City has unequaled advantages in her cheap and abundant coal, and in the cheapness and abundance of materials afforded by the contiguous country, a brief summary of which will be found further on in this chapter.
POSITION AND TRADE.
True, this city does not yet supply all the merchandise, nor market all the products of the vast region tributary to her. The country and the city, com- mercially speaking, are but a quarter of a century old. The people coming in from all quarters, as emigrants always do, at first look back to the point from whence they came for supplies and for markets. It takes time to establish new associations. This city, as a depot of supply, is not to exceed fifteen years old, and as a market not to exceed ten, but her development in these respects is, for rapidity, without a parallel in the history of cities. She has trade relations estab- lished throughout the domain, and now she reaches a point where all competitors must give way forever. She sends merchandise to Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, Missouri, Iowa, New Mexico and Texas, and though this trade has not been in existence to exceed ten years she has now nearly excluded all competitors from the markets for the cattle of Texas, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, the Indian Ter- ritory, New Mexico and western Missouri; the hogs of western Missouri, Kansas, southeastern Iowa, southern Nebraska and northern Texas ; the sheep and wool of Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico, and the wheat of western Missouri, Kan- sas and southern Nebraska, and partly of southwestern Iowa.
That she will in a few years market all the products of this vast area and supply it with all its merchandise, is certain. Her railway lines penetrate it, radiating from her in all directions. The railway systems of the entire area cen- ters at Kansas City, the roads that do not terminate here making their connection with those that do. The absence of navigable waters makes the railways the sole arteries of commerce, and that they will bear the products of the country to Kan- sas City, and bear the merchandise from Kansas City, is as certain as that they radiate from Kansas City to all parts of the country.
It is a remarkable fact that the markets of Kansas City came into existence and grew to nearly equal importance with those of St. Louis and Chicago-in some respects to a controlling position-within five years, while there was little visible growth in the city and little immigration into the country. It is a remark- able fact also that during the same period, and under the same conditions, the mercantile business of the city was quadrupled, and has continued to grow with unprecedented rapidity since. The significance of these facts is unmistakable. It simply means the rapid, intense concentration of the trade of the country at Kansas City.
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HISTORY OF KANSAS CITY.
Since, therefore, Kansas City already so largely controls the trade of this vast area, and since its intense and speedy concentration here is assured by the facts above stated, it manifests that her growth will be measured by that of the country. It remains only for us to review the resources of the country and com- pare them with those of districts commercially tributary to the great cities of the world, to arrive at some idea of what Kansas City must become.
In this we cannot avail ourselves of the exact statistics offered by old, settled and developed countries ; ours is so new that we as yet scarcely know the extent of its possibilities-we know only the nature of them, and have estimated mag- nitudes below which they can not fall.
THE NEW WEST AND ITS RESOURCES.
The area in which Kansas City trades may be defined as between the 17th and 29th meridian west from Washington and the 23d and 41st parallels of lati- tude, embracing a greater variety of climate and mineral and soil products than can be found in any similar area in the world. The great agricultural belt of the United States crosses it. It contains the greatest pastoral region in the world, and embraces the famous lead, zinc and coal mines of Missouri and Kansas, and the lead, coal, iron, silver and gold mines of Colorado and New Mexico. There are no adequate statistics of its population or productions. It is so new, and has been settling and developing so rapidly since the general census, in 1870, that the facts of that census would grossly misrepresent its present condition, and the census of 1880 is not yet available.
The general conditions of a country have much to do in determining its fit- ness for the habitation of man. These may be said to consist of climate, rainfall and soil, and we propose first to take a brief view of these.
CLIMATE.
As above stated, this country embraces a wide range of climate, due partly to the number of latitudes it embraces, and partly to the difference in altitude, the country rising from about seven hundred feet at the Missouri River, to about five thousand at the base of the inountains. However, the most desirable latitudes cross it, the country between the 38th and 42d parallels, both in this country and Europe, having been found to be the best adapted to vigorous manhood, longev- ity, and physical and mental effort. These parallels embrace, on both hemi- spheres, the largest per cent. of the population north of the equator, and the seat of man's highest achievements.
The country between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains is specially favored in regard to climate. In the summer the prevailing wind is from south southeast to north northwest, and it comes from the Gulf of Mexico laden with moisture, which tempers the summer heats to a degree not experienced in the country east of the Mississippi River. In winter the prevailing wind is from north northwest to south southeast. It comes from the streams and currents of Pacific Ocean, and in crossing the mountain ranges of the west, its moisture is precipitated in snow, hence it comes to the prairies east of the mountains dry and bracing. It is needless to state the fact that a cold air that is dry is vastly less disagreeable or unhealthy than one that is damp. And this makes the difference between the country west of the Mississippi River and that east of it, in winter time ; for while it is dry and healthful west of that stream, the northern wind east of it crosses the great lakes, and is laden with unhealthful moisture.
It is due to this fact that the western plains are so healthful for man, and so favorable for live stock. Thousands of people who have become invalids in the east, have been restored by removing to the west. It is needless to cite instances ; they are so numerous as to have already established the reputation of the country, and to have made some parts of it, as Colorado, an asylum and resort for health-
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seekers. The atmosphere of the western plains is in winter delicious-cool, dry and bracing. All animal life is invigorated, man grows stronger, and animals thrive and fatten better without shelter than they do with it in most eastern longi- tudes. Sounds penetrate to great distances, and the air is so elastic and clear that it seems, if it could be successfully struck as a bell, it would resound through- out the Heavens with clear, ringing music. Vegetation and dead animals do not decay, but dry up, the former retaining all its nutritive properties. The western prairies are covered in winter, not with dead grasses, but with fine, well cured and nutritive hay, upon which the immense herds of buffalo, elk and deer have lived and fattened throughout all the ages, and upon which it has now been found that cattle and sheep thrive eqally well.
The following additional facts relative to the climate, we glean from the writ- ings of Dr. Latham :
"The great belt of country between the Missouri River and the Pacific Ocean is bisected about equally north and south by the great snowy range. As you leave the Pacific Ocean or Missouri River, and approach these lofty moun- tains, you gradually rise until you are on the elevated table lands of the conti- nent.
"Through these immense grassy tables the streams run which drain this mountain range of its snows and running waters. As you approach nearer to the mountain base, you reach greater elevations, and find the country better watered.
"Intersecting this country, extending from the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers to the foot of the mountains, one thousand and one hundred miles north and south, and five hundred miles east and west, is the great Rio Grande, Neu- ces, San Antonio, Gaudaloupe, Colorado, Brazos, Trinity, Main Red, Washita, Canadian, Cimarron, Arkansas, Smoky Hill, Saline, Solomon, Republican, North and South Platte, Loup Fork, Niobrara, White Earth, Big Cheyenne, Little Mis- souri, Powder, Tongue, Rose Bud, Big Horn, Wind River, Yellowstone, Milk River, Mussel Shell, Marias, Jefferson Fork, and the head of the Missouri itself above the Yellowstone; each one in itself fitted to take rank with the great rivers of the world, and all aggregating fully twenty thousand miles of living crystal water. Each one of these is made up of innumerable smaller streams, some of which would be called great but for comparison with the larger parent streams, all making a complete network of mountain streams, draining every mountain and hillside, and watering every valley.
"The western slope is equally well if not better watered. I do not think there is another country so well watered as the two Rocky Mountain slopes. From El Paso del Norte, on the Mexican boundary, to the headwaters of the Missouri River, a distance, if measured by the windings of the great mountain range, of from eighteen hundred to two thousand miles, there is not five miles between the small mountain streams that run down the great slopes to form these larger ones. The valleys of these little, and even of the larger streams, are covered with a dense growth of tall grass; while the higher grounds between these streams are covered with a shorter but sweeter growth. The bluffs bordering on the large streams on the plains are not high nor precipitous, but rounded and regular, and grass-grown. Nearer the mountains, these bluffs are higher and steeper, and in some instances amount to cañons, and afford the best protection to all kinds of stock.
"The country west of the foot of the Sierra Madre or Snowy Range, is divided into the great mountain valleys, such as the great parks of Colorado and the Lar- amie plains, all of which, to the height of nine thousand feet, are covered with luxuriant grass. These valleys are elevated table-lands like the steppes of Asia, with soil, climate and productions similar. I have devoted this much time to the physical geography of the trans-Missouri country, that your readers may know of its general formation, of its streams, etc.
" There is, perhaps, no one subject so little understood as that of the climate
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of this country. It is entirely unlike the Atlantic and Mississippi Valley States. Judged by the climate of the States in the same latitude, and at the same altitude, four-fifths of this larger division of our country would be uninhabitable from snows and frosts.
"On the Atlantic coast, on the White and Alleghany Mountains, the perpetual snow line is or would be, seven thousand feet above the sea. In the same latitude on the Rocky Mountains the snow line is from twelve to fourteen thousand feet above.
" The terminal line of vegetation on the White Mountains is five thousand feet; on the Alleghany Mountains it is five thousand five hundred feet; on the Black Hills, at Sherman, eight thousand and two hundred, and the still higher points, as high as nine thousand feet, are covered with luxuriant growth of grass.
"Strawberries are picked on the Snowy Range to the height of eleven thou- sand feet, and evergreen trees grow to the tops of the highest mountains, which are over fifteen thousand feet high. The great table lands and the elevated plains and valleys of the mountains, such as North, Middle and South Parks, and the Laramie plains, are one and two thousand feet above the tops of the Atlantic coast range mountains, and in the same latitude, are as mild as the Atlantic sea level.
"There must be some powerful influence to make such wonderful differences on the same continent.
" England, in latitute 62", has a warmer climate than Long Island in 40°. Nova Scotia, 45°, is nearly frigid in temperature, while in France, in 49º north latitude-4° farther north-is vine clad. While the inhabitant of Nova Scotia shivers over his fire, the Frenchman reclines in the shade of his "vine and fig tree."
" The climate of Europe is tempered by the eternal waters of the Gulf Stream, which has been heated in the tropics. Not only is the climate on the immediate coast directly influenced and changed by the Gulf Stream, but the winds warmed by it give the vine, the ivy and the geranium to the Seine, the Rhine and the Elbe, and even invade the realms of the winter king on the sides of the lofty Alps, the Ural, the Appenines and the Pyrenees.
"Thus it is here. The western coast of our continent is washed by a tropical stream greater and warmer than the Gulf Stream, and which makes San Fancisco, in the same latitude as Richmond, 14° warmer ; makes Astoria, in the same lati- tude as Fort Brady, Michigan, 28º warmer in winter, and 12º warmer all the year round ; makes Sitka, Alaska, in the same latitude as Nain, Labrador, 32º warmer in winter, and 17º the whole year round
"The currents of air heated by the thermal waters, are forced east, and spreading through the valleys of the great mountain range, give to Utah (four thousand and five hundred feet above the sea), grapes, peaches, apricots, cotton, the sugar cane, and other tropical productions. To Colorado, along the eastern base of the mountains, at an altitude of five thousand feet, it gives the climate of Virginia and Tennessee.
" This heated wind, the warm, balmy breath of the topics, makes the snow and ice shrink and retire up the sides of the lofty Sierre Madre ; giving up the land to the wild rose, the mountain lily, and honey suckle, the columbine, and the trailing arbutus, and hundreds more of all the flowers, all spreading out into a floral carpet of the richest and most varied colors.
" Mild temperatures in our high altitudes and latitudes are not of their kind wonderful in comparison with Asia, whose table-lands in the great Himalayas are many degrees north of ours, and higher than the tops of Long's Peak and Fremont's Peak and Mt. Hood.
"The Plains of Sadak, belonging to the Rajah of Cashmere, in latitude 40°, are fifteen thousand feet high. Their snow and rain fall is less than ours. Herds of cattle, sheep, and horses gaze upon them the year round, while still higher on the hill sides which surround them, the Tartars grow barley and oats each year.
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