USA > Missouri > Linn County > The history of Linn county, Missouri. An encyclopedia of useful information > Part 10
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91
The year 1881 opens auspiciously for a new life. St. Louis now begins to consider the question of progress from a more enlightened standpoint, and with a look of intelligent action. It may take a little time yet to drive sleep from her eyelids and sloth from her limbs, but it looks now more than ever as though she would accomplish this and wake up to the full fruition of her great opportunities-in fact, to her manifest destiny. Missouri ought to be proud of St. Louis, but that cannot be while sloth lies at the portals of her gates and the dry-rot of old fogyism guides her present course.
The brewery business of St. Louis is one of her leading departments of trade. She has the largest establishment in the world for bottling beer, a building two hundred feet long and thirty feet broad. The manufacture of wine is another important business which has assumed immense pro- portions. Distilling, rectifying and wholesale dealing in liquors is another branch that adds a large revenue to the taxable wealth of the city. There is nothing in the manufacturers' line but what could sustain a healthy growth in St. Louis, if even plain business sense is at command. Her future may be said to be all before her, for her manufacturing interests are yet in their infancy. She can become the manufacturing center of the continent. The center or receiving point for the greatest amount of cereals any city can handle, and the stock center also of the country, St. Louis may, with the opportunities within her grasp, well be called the "Future Great."
74
HISTORY OF ST. LOUIS.
CHAPTER OF CRITICISM
But the name " Future Great" is used at this time by her rivals in tones of derision. That she should have ignored so many years the great and bountiful resources nature has so lavishly bestowed upon her, aye! it would seein, even spurned them through an ignorance as dense as it is won- derful, is very strange, and has brought a stigma of disgrace upon the character of her people. This action on her part has not escaped the notice of men of wealth, of towering ambition, of nerve force and of un- limited energy, and to-day one of the railway kings of the country, Jay Gould, of New York, has grasped the scepter of her commercial life and rules with a grasp of steel, and through his iron roadways run the com- mercial life-blood which flows through the arteries of her business life. That this neglect of her great opportunities should have placed it in the power of one man to become the arbiter of her fate is as humiliating as it has proved costly. Millions have poured into the coffers of Jay Gould, who, seeing this vast wealth of resources lying idle or uncared for, had the nerve to seize and the far-seeing judgment and enterprise to add them to his own personal gains The world can admire the bold energy of the inan, and the genius that can grasp and guide the commercial destinies of an Empire, but it is none the less a blot upon the fair name, capital and enter- prise of a great city, and should mantle the cheek of every St. Louisian with shame. The writer feels all that he has here written, but his pride as a Missourian cannot blind him to the faults of her people.
St. Louis is an old city and there has been much written of her extraor- dinary progress, and yet whatever that progress is, has been caused far far more by her people being compelled to take advantage of the opportu- nities within their reach than making such by their own energy and enter- prise. If she has grown in population and in wealth, it is because she could not help herself. After forty years of life, as late as 1812, the cur- rency of St. Louis was still confined to peltries, trinkets, maple sugar, honey, bees wax, venison, hams, etc., in fact, all barter and trade, and yet those who have compiled her local history talk wildly of her destiny and prophesy wonders for her in the near future. It is best to look at St. Louis as she is to-day. It is to be hoped that her future growth may not take pattern after her past, and that the new men who have taken her com- inercial future into their keeping will still exhibit that towering genius for the development of St. Louis that has characterized them in their eastern home.
The future of St. Louis would seem to be one of a rapidly growing city, not only in population, but in commercial and financial strength as though founded upon a rock. This is the present outlook. While the genius of Gould and his associates has secured millions of dollars by their business
75
HISTORY OF ST LOUIS.
ventures, there are other millions still left to build up and add to her pros- perity and greatness if rightly managed.
The tremendous energy of Gould has astonished the sleepy St. Lonisians as much as if they had been treading upon live coals, and in waking up they have discovered that their sleep and indolence have cost them several millions. Gould, Keene, Dillon, Sage and their associates do not work for nothing, and the people who claim the "Future Great" as their abiding place should lose no time in taking a firm hold of the present and guiding her toward the great destiny which awaits her, with the winning card's in their own hands. The New Yorkers have shown them a will and a way, and now let them practice the lesson it has cost them so much to learn.
It has been over a century since St. Louis took a start into life, and it is quite that since the ring of the pioneer's ax and the sharp crack of his rifle reverberated through her streets. The slow progress of pioneer life has departed and modern civilization, with the light of genius for its guide, is rapidly progressing and recording history for future generations. When in 1817 the first steamboat landed at St. Louis, the possibilities of what the future might be began to dawn upon the minds of her people, and that year may be well proclaimed as the dividing line between the old and the new era of St. Louis's destiny. From that day she looked forward, not backward, and while up to that time she seemed to have lived in the past, it was the future before her that then riveted her attention. She kept up a lively step to the music of progress for several years, and the Father of Waters and the mighty Missouri with their fleets of water-craft attested her enterprise, and she grew apace. But in a few years she again fell asleep, and slept until the snort of the iron horse awoke her rudely from slumber. She had grown even while she slept, because the great water-way which passed her door had become the pathway of a mighty business. But this grand highway to the sea which had nourished her while she slept was at once forgotten or relegated to the rear, and her awakened energies were given to the prancing steed whose breath was fire, that made the earth tremble at his strength, and whose speed was like the wings of the wind. The railroad fever had taken possession of the Queen City of the Valley. She grew apace and for years she has reveled in the new love, and the grand old Father of Waters which had nurtured her into life was forgotten. But she has again awakened from her quiet dreams, and the iron horse which had lulled her to repose was found while bringing millions to her door to have taken millions more away. And in this year of 1881 she opens her eyes to her true destiny, and the grand Old Father of Waters, which she had striven to drive from her, was once more recog. mized as the very foundation or bed-rock of her commercial life, the power that was to keep in check the absorption of her wealth, from the monopo- lizing influence and insatiable maw of the railway kings. She now proudly points to the grand old river, and the fleets of barges borne upon its bosom
76
HISTORY OF ST. LOUIS.
filled with the wealth of an empire, and calls on her sister, Chicago, to look at this glorious sight. The " Garden City " has already snuffed the battle from afar, and is ready to struggle for a commercial supremacy in which there are literally millions, for nature has done the work, and St. Louis will win. The "City by the Lake " is deserving, and had she the opportunities which have lain so long dormant in possession of her rival, would have been to-day the wonder of the world. But it is the rugged path that brings out man's energy and endurance, not the smooth road. So it is with cities. And so the majestic Mississippi flows on, bearing upon its waters the riches of the valley, and pouring into the lap of the Queen City upon its banks millions upon millions of wealth. If the spirit of 1881 shall continue, then St. Louis will soon become the pride of the State. In reality she will be the "Future Great " of the American Continent. She that stands on the bank of this great inland sea, the commerce of an empire flowing at her feet, her sails in every clime and country, she is indeed to become a great city, the arbiter of the commercial world and the Queen City whose wealth, commanding influence, culture and refinement will attest the greatness of her people and command the homage of the world. Such is to be the " Future Great " city, St. Louis.
STATISTICS.
Debt of St. Louis, January 1, 1881, $22,507,000; rate of taxation on the $100, $1.75.
The receipts of all kinds of grain, 51,958,177 bushels.
Twenty-four flouring-mills manufactured 2,077,625 barrels of flour in 1880.
The receipts of cotton for 1880 were 496,570 bales.
There were 12,846,169 pounds of tobacco manufactured into plug, fine-cut and smoking tobacco.
There were 330,935,973 feet of lumber received in 1880.
St. Louis received for the year 1880, 41,892,356 bushels of coal.
Seven elevators have a total capacity of 5,650,000 bushels, and three more are being erected and one other enlarged.
The aggregate of bank clearing for 1880 amounted to $1,422,918,978.
The post-office distributed in 1880, 43,731,844 pieces, weighing 4,250,000 pounds.
Post-office orders issued numbered 53,337, and - represented $879,943.90. The value of school property is $2,851,133.
The steel bridge cost $13,000,000 and tunnel $1,500,000.
HISTORY OF KANSAS CITY.
KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI.
A Sketch-The New Life-Its First Settlement -- Steamboat Events from 1840 to 1846-Mex- ican War-Santa Fe Trade-Railroads-Commercial Advancement-Stock Market- Pork-packing-Elevators and Grain Receipts-Coal Receipts-Buildings-Railroad Changes-Banks-Newspapers-Churches-Secret Societies -- Public Schools-Manufac- turing Center-Her Position and Trade-Assessed Valuation-Close.
A short description of the rise and progress of Kansas City, the great metropolis of the Missouri Valley, may be of interest to the people of this section. It is the wonder of the people of the East, as of the West, that in the last fifteen years 75,000 people should have made it their home, and that upon the rugged hills and deep ravines which are found upon the banks of the Missouri River at the mouth of the Kaw, should become the site of a mighty commercial emporium, and that the second city of the State should be found rising in stately magnificence where, but a few years since, fur-traders and trappers made their home. Within the cor- porate limits of Kansas City, in the year 1881, fully 70,000 people are found, while in the suburbs fully 5,000 more are located. When the city of Wyandotte is added, and that of Independence and Westport, and other small towns, we have, within a very short distance, 100,000 people to advance the glory, the growing power and the material prosperity of one of the most thriving cities on this Western Continent-a city that every Missourian can be proud of, and can point to with honest exultation at her rapidly growing power, and the expansion of her environs. It is that city, within one hun- dred miles, which Western Missouri can look to as a market, and where she will in the near future look for her commercial emporium. Already the wholesale trade rivals in many branches that of St. Louis, and five years hence she will be the second cattle and hog market of the country. With a barge line in operation to St. Louis, it will be found the best market for cereals, and already cattle and hogs can be sold. there at St. Louis prices, with less than half the freight charges. While St. Louis will ever be the metropolis of the State and the Mississippi Valley, Kansas City equally as- sumes the proud position of the metropolis of the Missouri Valley, and the largest city that will ever be found this side of the mountains, west of the Father of Waters.
BRIDGE CROSSING MISSOURI RIVER AT KANSAS CITY.
79
HISTORY OF KANSAS CITY.
THE NEW LIFE.
It was not until after the late war that a new life opened upon Kansas City, but from the day that peace spread her wings over this favored land Kansas City's future has been assured. For years she was simply known as a river landing, and the name Westport, but when the tide of immigration struck Kansas those settlers of a new State became tributary to the com- mercial prosperity of the city. There was another point in her progress which marked the sagacity of her people, and that was their.determination to secure railroads. Not only has she given hundreds of thousands of dol- lars to her bridge and the railways centering there from within the State, but she has contributed other hundreds of thousands to the struggling rail- roads of Kansas, and has her reward, for she is the metropolis of Kansas as well as a city of Missouri. And, while the population of Kansas City `increased 25,000 the last decade, Leavenworth actually lost population during the same time. One was peopled by an energetic, open-hearted, pro- gressive people, ready to push forward the wheels of enterprise, build up and help neighbors and friends; the other was known as a "Smart Aleck," who took care of number one. One has the trade and the love of a State, although outside of its border; the other is groping in the pathway of a spirit so selfish, that it was blinded to every spirit of progress, and a monument has been raised so high within its limits that it is seen by the people of two States, and on its top is carved in massive letters, one word, " decay." Such is Leavenworth, and such is the proud city of a hundred hills, Kansas City.
THE LONG AGO-FIRST SETTLEMENT AT KANSAS CITY.
In the spring of 1821 M. Chouteau was sent to this country to establish a general agency for a fur company, from which supplies could be sent to the trading-posts, and at which the proceeds of the trade could be collected. The knowledge of the country he had already acquired enabled him to judge of the merits of different points for such agency, having in view always the advantages offered by each for extended operations by the methods of trans- portation then employed. At the Kaw's mouth he had access by water to the entire valleys of the Kaw, Missouri, Platte and smaller tributaries, while it afforded the shortest land transit to the Indians of the plains and to the val- leys of the Osage, Neosho and Arkansas. Hence, with that unerring judg- ment for which his class were peculiar, he selected this point and established himself in the bottom opposite Randolph Bluff's, about three miles below what is now Kansas City. This was the first recognition of the natural ad- vantages of this angle of the river for a large distributive trade, and the ' actual founding of the interest which has since expanded into the varied and wide extended activities of this city. He brought with him at this time
SO
HISTORY OF KANSAS CITY.
about thirty men, all of whom were employed in the service of the com- pany as couriers des bois or voyageurs, and through them he concentrated at his general agency here the trade of the trans-Missouri country. His post at this point was in a sense a trading-post for the Indians near by, but its distinctive feature was a depot of supply and as a point of concentration for traders, trappers, hunters, and the interior posts. In the fall of the same year he brought his family to this post in a keel-boat, which was towed all the way from St. Louis. The men who came with M. Chouteau, in 1821, were, with few exceptions, dispatched into the interior, where they established trading-posts or traveled and traded among the Indians.
In 1826 there was a flood in the rivers which washed away M. Chouteau's houses opposite Randolph Bluffs and cansed great loss. A part of the stock was taken to Randolph Bluffs; he sent his family to the Four Houses, and soon afterward rebuilt his house, but this time higher up and on higher ground, which is now embraced in what is known as Guinott's Addition to Kansas City. This place became well known as "Chonteau's Warehouse," and was the landing-place for large amounts of freight for Indian trade, and for the trade with northern Mexico, which subsequently sprung up here.
THE FIRST WHITE MAN.
The first white man other than these and the French traders to locate on ground now embraced within the corporate limits of Kansas City was James H. McGee, who settled here in 1828 and whose family was so prominently identified with the early development of Kansas City. Several of his sons still reside in this city and vicinity. But there was not enough infusion of Americans into this French settlement to materially affect its character for a number of years afterward, but it continued as it had begun, the center of an extensive fur and Indian trade. The first ferry across the Missouri River in the vicinity of Kansas City was established at Randolph Bluffs by a Mr. Younger, grandfather of the "Younger boys" who in connection with the "James boys " have been so notorious in the West. At what time this ferry was established is not known, but it was in operation in 1828. The only means of crossing the river at Kansas City at that time consisted of canoes. Two of these lashed together were used from the time of the first settlement of Americans in this vicinity, to cross over with their grists to a horse mill on the other side of the river, and it continued of about this character until 1836.
The advantages of this point of departure for the west, southwest and northwest, were afterward recognized by Captain Bonneville, who took his departure from Fort Osage in 1832, and of whose expeditions such an ex- . cellent account has been given by Washington Irving. Lieutenant Lupton and Fremont and Beale subsequently took their departure for their cele- brated expeditions from the French settlement where Kansas City now is. In 1832 Colonel Ellsworth, commissioner of Indian affairs, visited the
KANSAS CITY COURT-HOUSE.
6
82
HISTORY OF KANSAS CITY.
Indians west of Missouri and Arkansas, and likewise took their departure from this point. Colonel Ellsworth's party consisted of a number of per- sons of great distinction, among whom were J. H. B. Latrobe, architect of the capitol at Washington, Count Pourtales, of Switzerland, Paul Liqueste Chouteau, of St. Louis, and Washington Irving. It was this expedition that furnished Irving the material for his "Tour on the Prairies," in which he gives an excellent account of it. However, there was one incident of this tour which he does not mention, and which occurred in this county, so strongly illustrative of the disregard the hardy frontiersman of that time had for rank and position in society, that it is given here. The party had engaged as a camp assistant Mr. Harry Younger, of this county, the father of the "Younger boys." The first morning after leaving Chouteau's house, Mr. Irving requested him, at the breaking of camp, to bring up the horses, so that they might start on the journey. The horses were grazing at a little distance. "All right," replied Mr. Younger, "let's go after them." "But," said Mr. Irving, " we expect you to do that." "Well," said Mr. Younger, " why can't some of you help me. There's that d-d count, why can't he go? He does nothing but shoot snow-birds." Mr. Younger, with the social equality ideas peculiar to the hardy frontiersman, could not readily appreciate the dignity of a commissioner of Indian affairs, a Swiss count or a cele- brated author, nor see why they should not help bring in the horses.
STEAMBOATS.
The first boat on the Missouri River was the Independence which ascended the stream in 1819, probably as far as Council Bluffs. She passed Franklin May 28, where a dinner was given to the officers, but we have no record of her dates at points higher up. In August and September of the same year the steamers Western Engineer, Expedition and R. M. Johnson, ascended the stream with Major Long's scientific party, bound for the Yellowstone.
A DESCRIPTION OF EARLY KANSAS CITY.
A clearing, or old field, of a few acres, lying on the high ridge between Main and Wyandotte and Second and Fifth streets, made and abandoned by a mountain trapper, a few old girdled dead trees standing in the field, sur- rounded by a dilapidated rail fence; all around on all sides a dense forest, the ground covered with impenetrable underbrush and fallen timber, and deep, impassable gorges; a narrow, crooked roadway winding from Twelfth and Walnut streets along down on the west side of the deep ravine toward the river, across the public square, to the river at the foot of Grand Avenue; a narrow, difficult path, barely wide enough for a single horseman, running up and down the river under the bluffs, winding its crooked way around fallen timber and deep ravines; an old log house on the river bank, oc- cupied by a lank, cadaverous specimen of humanity named Ellis, with one
.83
HISTORY OF KANSAS CITY.
blind eye and the other on a sharp lookout for stray horses, straggling Indians and squatters with whom to swap a tin cup of whisky for a coon skin; another old dilapidated log cabin on the point below the Pacific depot; two or three small dwellings and cabins in the Kaw bottom, now called West Kansas, which were houses of French mountain trappers, engaged principally in raising young half-breeds. The rest of the surroundings were the still sol- itude of the native forest, broken only by the snort of the startled deer, the bark of the squirrel, the howl of the wolf, the settler's cow-bell, and may- hap the distant baying of the hunter's dog or the sharp report of his rifle.
The Indian trade continued to flourish at both Westport and Kansas City, and the Santa Fe trade at Independence until 1843, when it was tem- porarily suppressed by order of General Santa Anna.
EVENTS OF 1843 TO 1846.
In 1844 H. M. Northrup, now a banker at Wyandotte, Kansas, came to Kansas City with the largest stock of merchandise that had yet been offered here, if not, in fact, the largest stock that had yet been offered at any place near this angle.
In 1845 James H. McGee made some brick on his farm south of the . town, and built the first brick house ever built in Kansas City. From this lot of brick J. C. McCoy, who then conducted the ferry at this place, built the L part of a brick house, which still stands on the bluff, between Grand Avenue and Walnut Street. These were the first brick made in Kansas City, and the first laid here.
The effect of the Mexican War gave a great impulse to the trade and pros- perity of the border towns; for now, more than ever, were the advantages of this angle of the river as a point of departure for the southwest appreciated. Kansas City felt the impulse of the preparations that were being made during the winter, and from the anticipation of the large amount of ware- housing, and receiving and forwarding of military and sutler's goods, out- fits and supplies, soon to occur, it acquired new and improved prospects. These facts, united with the tendency the Mexican trade had shown the previous year to come to this place, led the town company to lay anew the foundation of the future city.
At the time of the first sale of town lots, April 30, 1846, it was estimated that there were about three hundred people in the new town, nearly all settled along the river front. However, under the impulse of the Mexican War and Sante Fe trade, added to the Indian trade already existing, the place grew rapidly, and before the close of that year the population was estimated at seven hundred.
6
84
HISTORY OF KANSAS CITY.
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT.
There was no municipal government in Kansas City prior to 1853, but a circumstance occurred in December, 1852, which led to its establishment. This circumstance was the arrest of a man for some light offense by the constable, upon whose trial it was discovered that the commission issued to the authorities was for the next congressional township east, which located their jurisdiction at least six miles from where they had been exercising their authority. This led to a movement looking to municipal organiza- tion. That winter, February 22, 1853, a charter was obtained from the State, and in the spring of 1853 a local government was organized. The land embraced in Kansas City, according to this charter, was bounded by the river on the north, by Summit Street on the west, by Ninth Street on the south, and on the east by the alley between Holmes and Charlotte streets, and therefore embraced much that was not yet, nor for two years to come, laid off into town lots. All that was platted was the old Prud- homme estate. At the election, W. S. Gregory was elected mayor, but served only a short time when Dr. Johnson Lykins was elected to suc- ceed him. Dr. Lykins was re-elected next spring, and in the spring of 1855 John Johnson was elected, but resigned a month afterward. M. J. Payne succeeded him, and held the office till 1860.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.