Long before any incorporation or any platting of town sites there was much activity in this locality. Judge E.P. West, an eminent local geologist, produces indisputable evidence in the shape of stone arrow-heads and spear-heads found on the present town site that the place was inhabited at least 21,000 years ago. The local museum contains a great number of specimens of flint and stone work indicating to geologists and archæologists the presence of races dating back many centuries.

In 1825, the Jesuit Fathers penetrated all parts of the wilderness surrounding what is now Kansas City. They were doubtless the first white settlers and in all probability they had only the usual purpose, zeal in propagating the religion of their fathers. They are known to have built a small log house in the neighborhood of the northern part of what is now Troost Avenue. It was as much a church as a dwelling, for here the tribes to whom they had come attended religious service. In 1835 a missionary named Father Roux established the first actual church in this locality. There were many trappers and hunters of the French-Canadian type who had intermarried with the Indians. In 1835 Father Roux purchased of a Canadian some forty acres on the hill adjoining the present site of the Roman Catholic Cathedral, almost exactly in the centre of the present city, and in 1839 was instrumental in having a log church built on a part of the land situated between what are now Eleventh and Twelfth Streets on Penn Street. Here for a period of at least twenty years a congregation composed largely of French Canadians and the children of the French and Indian intermarriages worshipped together. In 1845 Father Bernard Donnelly was made pastor of all Western Missouri, and ministered to the Indians and whites alike. Through his efforts a brick church was erected on the corner of what are now Eleventh Street and Broadway, and from 1857 to 1880, when he retired from active work to die a few months later at the age of eighty, he devoted himself entirely to his priestly duties. The church and the city owe an unmeasured debt of gratitude to this unselfish and lovable man.

[ CONVENTION HALL, KANSAS CITY.]

Questions of transportation have been of overwhelming interest to the people of Kansas City from the beginning. The first crossing of the Missouri River at this point was established in 1836 by the operation of a flatboat at the mouth of the "Kaw." The Rev. Isaac McCoy and his son established the ferry and operated it until 1854. Then came the horse-power ferryboat, and the steam ferryboat. In due time full-fledged steamboats made their appearance on the Missouri. Westport Landing, by reason of a rocky bank and deep water in front of it, afforded an excellent landing. Here were unloaded the goods for the great Indian and Mexican trade of the West, and from here were shipped eastward wool, furs, buffalo robes, and other products of the region. Immigration overland to Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Mexico, and California came to this point in boats and then went westward by the old Santa Fé trail. From about 1850 to the coming of the railroads, from six to ten boats daily came to this landing. In 1857, during the nine months of navigation, no fewer than fifteen hundred boats arrived and departed. Some of them were palatial structures, judged even by the standard of to-day, and many of them were magnificently furnished and equipped to care for passengers.

One of the early features of the travel and traffic between Kansas City and the West was the old Concord Coach and another was the ox and mule wagon known as the "Prairie Schooner." The coaches carried from ten to fifteen passengers, and the passengers as a rule carried from two to a dozen weapons of defence against the Indians. At one time the fare per passenger from Westport to Santa Fé, New Mexico, was $175 in gold, and the schedule time was thirteen days and six hours. The trip involved travelling night and day, asleep and awake, without stopping except for meals. The "Overland Mail Express Company" maintained an office for years on the Levee, and for carrying mails received $172,000 a year. Mail, passengers, and express matter usually yielded from $5000 to $6000 a trip.

In 1843, the Mexican trade from this point was suspended by Santa Anna, who closed the northern port of entry. As soon, however, as the embargo was removed, trade revived and greatly increased. At this time Atchison, Leavenworth, St. Joseph, and Omaha entered upon the same business, but until the Civil War commenced Kansas City retained most of the trade. A book published in 1843 shows the tonnage between Kansas City and Mexico to have increased from 15,000 tons in 1822, to 150,000 tons in 1837, the increase being fairly uniform over the entire period. In 1850, 600 wagons began the overland trip from Kansas City; by 1855 the trade had grown to a total valuation of at least $5,000,000, and by 1860 had still further increased to a point which attracted national attention. In that year a correspondent sent by the New York Herald to study the statistics of the business, reported that there were shipped from Kansas City in that year 16,439,134 pounds of freight, employing 7084 men, 6147 mules, 27,920 yoke of oxen and 3033 wagons, to which should be added the statistics of the trade with the towns of Kansas and Nebraska. This, for that time, enormous bulk of business, passed over the Santa Fé trail which is now almost exactly the route of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railroad.

At the close of the Civil War in 1865, during which Kansas City, in common with all the border towns of Missouri and Kansas, was disturbed by the conflict, a tremendous immigration began to flow westward through the city. Railroad enterprises in Kansas and beyond were opening up the country for settlement, and the families of those who had lately been engaged in war rushed westward to take up the vacant lands offered them.

[ THE CITY HALL, KANSAS CITY.]

The first railroads entering the city were the Hannibal & St. Joseph (which is now a part of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy system) and the Missouri Pacific—the first entering from the direction of Chicago, and the last from the direction of St. Louis. The first built to the west was the Union Pacific Railway, Eastern Division, afterwards known as the Kansas Pacific, now a part of the Union Pacific.

Railroad building in the country immediately tributary to Kansas City became active at the close of the Civil War, and has continued until the present time (1901), when two new main lines are under construction towards the city. The railway companies with lines entering Kansas City now are the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul, the Wabash, the Chicago & Alton, the Missouri Pacific, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas, the St. Louis & San Francisco, the St. Joseph & Grand Island, the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Memphis, the Kansas City Southern, the Chicago & Great Western, the Kansas City & Northern, the Union Pacific, the Suburban Belt, and the Kansas City Belt.