KANSAS CITY BEFORE THE WAR.
In August, 1838, there appeared in the far West a newspaper published at
Liberty, in Clay County, Missouri, the only newspaper within many miles,
a notice which read as follows: "Circuit Court of Jackson County,
Missouri, at Independence, August term, 1838." Then followed a
description of lands now included in what is known as the "old town" of
Kansas City. Then continues: "The above mentioned lands are situated in
the county of Jackson, one and one-half miles below the mouth of the
Kansas River, and five miles from the flourishing town of Westport. The
situation is admirably calculated for a ferry across the Missouri River,
and also one of the best steamboat landings on the river, and an
excellent situation for a warehouse or town site. The terms of sale will
be a credit of twelve months, the purchaser giving bond and approved
security, with interest at the rate of 10 per cent from day of sale. All
those wishing to invest capital advantageously in landed estate will do
well to call upon Justice H. McGee, who is guardian for the heirs.
"JAMES B. DAVENPORT,
"PETER BOOTH,
"ELLIOTT JOHNSON,
"_Commissioners_."
The purchasers were William L. Sublette, John C. McCoy, William Gillis,
Robert Campbell, and others, and the price paid for the entire tract,
extending along the Missouri River from Broadway to Troost Avenue,
containing 156 acres, was $4,220.
These gentlemen put their purchase into lots and blocks and called it
"Kansas," but very little was done toward founding a city until some
eight years later, when a new company was organized by H. M. Northup,
who is still living; John C. McCoy, who died within the past few months;
Fry P. McGee, Jacob Ragan, William Gillis, Robert Campbell, who have
been dead but a few years respectively; Henry Jobe, W. B. Evans, and W.
M. Chick, who have been dead much longer.
The first sale of lots was had in April, 1848, at which sale 150 lots
were sold at an average price of $55.65 per lot.
The business of the city was confined almost entirely, for a number of
years, to the levee, and was of the general character of that done in
all river towns in their early history, pretty rough, pretty
miscellaneous, and not altogether unmixed with "wet goods." Prohibition
was an unknown element in social science, and the proportion of whisky
consumed in the retail trade, compared with that of tea or coffee, was
very like that described by Shakespeare in referring to Falstaff's
"intolerable deal of sack to the half penny worth of bread." But very
few men of those days remain nowadays; yet, as I have said, H. M.
Northup still lives, vigorous and active. Dr. I. M. Ridge still
continues to practice his profession, although less extensively than
forty years ago. John Campbell traverses our streets, but has long since
turned his well-known and faithful old sorrel mule out to grass. William
Mulkey looks hale and hearty, but has discarded his former buckskin
suit, though he still maintains a portion of his farm in the center of
the city. Once in a long while one of the old French settlers of those
early days, or even an old plainsman, ventures into the busy city and
looks about him in a bewildered sort of way for a day or two, and then
disappears again into the nearest wilderness or prairie, as being far
more congenial to his tastes and habits of life. Not all of them,
however, are of this character and disposition. It is but a few weeks
since I met one of our most noted pioneer plainsmen and freighters
across the prairies of Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico, in the earliest
of the days I have been speaking of. In those times no name was better
or more widely known than that of Seth E. Ward, the post trader at
Laramie.
The descendants of most of the original owners of the "Town of Kansas,"
as it was first called, or "Westport Landing," as it was nicknamed
later, still remain there, and are among its most prominent and
respected citizens to-day.
Ten years later the "western fever" struck Ohio, and hundreds of young
men of my acquaintance left there for Kansas and Nebraska. Omaha was a
favorite objective point, and a town named Columbus was founded still
farther west than Omaha, which was almost entirely colonized by people
from Franklin County, Ohio. One of my friends, Dr. Theodore S. Case,
also holding the rank of colonel, was studying medicine at the time in
Columbus, Ohio, and resisted the fever until the following year, 1857,
when, with a few books and a sheepskin authorizing him to write M. D.
after his name, and to commit manslaughter without being called to
account for it, started for the West. He knew nothing of the West, but
had a general idea that he would go to St. Louis, or Keokuk, or Des
Moines, or Omaha, or Council Bluffs, or possibly to "Carson City," Kan.;
for a sharper, originally from Columbus, had been out West and came back
with a lithographic map of a city by that name, fixed up very
attractively, and with all the modern improvements of court house, city
hall, depots, churches, colleges, steamboats, etc., and he bought some
$15 worth of lots on one of the principal thoroughfares of the city not
far from the depot. However, before he got as far west as St. Louis, he
had learned the manners and tricks of such gentry, and did not go to
"Carson City." By some accidental circumstance his attention was called
particularly to the geographical location of Kansas City, and he at once
determined to give it a look anyhow. There being no railroad nearer than
Jefferson City at that time, he took the steamer Minnehaha at St. Louis,
along with some other 299 fellows who were going "out west to grow up
with the country," and four days afterward landed at Kansas City, May 1,
1857, almost thirty-five years ago.
The first view of Kansas City was by no means prepossessing, as it
consisted principally of a line of shabby looking brick and frame
warehouses, dry-goods stores, groceries, saloons, restaurants, etc.,
strung along the levee from Wyandotte Street to a little east of Walnut
Street, the whole backed up and surmounted by a rugged and precipitous
bluff, from 100 to 150 feet high, covered with old dead trees, brush,
dog fennel and jimson weeds, with an occasional frame or log house
scattered between and among them, and a few women and children,
principally darkies, looking down at the boats.
To a young man, however, the levee, with its three or four steamers,
huge piles of Mexican freight, prairie schooners, mules, greasers,
Indians, negroes, mud clerks, roustabouts, Frenchmen, consignees,
emigrants, old settlers, tenderfeet, hotel drummers, brass bands,
omnibuses, etc., presented attractions not easily resisted.
Notwithstanding all the tooting for hotels, there were really but two in
the place, one on the levee, then known as the American Hotel, now
remembered more familiarly as the "Gillis House," and the other the
"Farmers' Hotel," on Grand Avenue, between Sixteenth and Seventeenth
streets. The first was technically known as the "Free State Hotel,"
having been built by the New England Aid Emigrant Society, and the other
as the "Pro-Slavery," or "Border Ruffian House," as it was or had been
the headquarters of the pro-slavery party in the border war of 1854 and
1856 between the free state and pro-slavery contestants for the
possession of political control of the Territory of Kansas.
[Illustration: LEE'S FERRY, ON THE COLORADO.]
All travelers, however, who knew the ropes dodged both these hotels and
took the omnibus for Westport, where two really good hotels were kept.
To show the amount of travel toward Kansas at that time I may say that
at the American Hotel alone there were 27,000 arrivals in the year
1856-57.
Such was Kansas City in early days and the experience there of a
tenderfoot, but now an honored citizen of what is really to-day a great
city.