Frontier community

About this book

This history of Kansas City is interwoven with the history of the trans-Missouri West. This book pictures the city's beginnings as a fur-trading post at the northward turning point of the Missouri River and describes the community as is it became successively a post for trade with the Indians, a trading and outfitting post for emigrants to California, Oregon, and the Southwest, and as its immediate hinterland began to be settled, an agricultural center. The concluding chapters tell of the coming of the railroads and the building of the first railroad bridge across the Missouri, creating from the little town of Kansas a city to serve a West that was merging with the mainstream of American history. Professor Brown contends that the reshapings of the community as an instrument to serve the changing needs of the West were due in large measure to the foresight and efforts of a small cohesive group of business leaders. He tells the story of their collective struggle against obstacles - the rivalry of several nearby communities for trade, railroads, and bridges and the destructive political strife during the Civil War, when the city was constantly harassed and threatened by guerrillas.