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Kansas coty
As of the census , the city had a population of , in , [6] making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central city of the Kansas City metropolitan area , which straddles the Missouri — Kansas state line and has a population of 2,, Kansas City was founded in the s as a port on the Missouri River at its confluence with the Kansas River coming in from the west. On June 1, , the town of Kansas was incorporated; shortly after came the establishment of the Kansas Territory.
Confusion between the two ensued, and the name Kansas City was assigned to distinguish them soon after. Sitting on Missouri's western boundary with Kansas , with Downtown near the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers, the city encompasses about It serves as one of the two county seats of Jackson County, along with the major satellite city of Independence.
The city is composed of several neighborhoods, including the River Market District in the north, the 18th and Vine District in the east, and the Country Club Plaza in the south. Celebrated cultural traditions include Kansas City jazz ; theater, as a center of the Vaudevillian Orpheum circuit in the s; the Chiefs and Royals sports franchises; and famous cuisine based on Kansas City-style barbecue , Kansas City strip steak , and craft breweries.
Kansas City, Missouri, was incorporated as a town on June 1, , and as a city on March 28, The area , straddling the border between Missouri and Kansas at the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri rivers, was considered a good place to build settlements.
The Antioch Christian Church , Dr. The Hopewell tradition which hunted in the area , as well as the Mississippian culture , Kansa , Osage , Otoe , and Missouri tribes all inhabited the Kansas City area. Bourgmont lived with a Native American wife in a village about 90 miles km east near Brunswick, Missouri , where he illegally traded furs. French cartographer Guillaume Delisle used the descriptions to make the area's first reasonably accurate map.
The Spanish took over the region in the Treaty of Paris in , but were not to play a major role other than taxing and licensing Missouri River ship traffic. The French continued their fur trade under Spanish license. The Chouteau family operated under Spanish license at St.
After the Louisiana Purchase , Lewis and Clark visited the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri rivers, noting it was a good place to build a fort.
In , a group of Mormons from New York state led by Joseph Smith settled in what would become the city. They built the first school within Kansas City's current boundaries, but were forced out by mob violence in , and their settlement remained vacant. In Gabriel Prudhomme Sr. He established a home for his wife, Josephine, and six children.
He operated a ferry on the river. He found it more convenient to have his goods offloaded at the Prudhomme landing than in Independence. Several years after Gabriel Prudhomme's death, a group of fourteen investors purchased his land at auction on November 14, By the investors divided the property and the first lots were sold in after legal complications were settled. The remaining lots were sold by February In , the landing area was incorporated as the Town of Kansas.
On February 22, , the City of Kansas was created with a newly elected mayor. It had an area of 0. The boundary lines at that time extended from the middle of the Missouri River south to what is now Ninth Street, and from Bluff Street on the west to a point between Holmes Road and Charlotte Street on the east. During the Civil War, the city and its immediate surroundings were the focus of intense military activity.
Although the First Battle of Independence in August resulted in a Confederate States Army victory, the Confederates were unable to leverage their win in any significant fashion, as Kansas City was occupied by Union troops and proved too heavily fortified to assault.
The Second Battle of Independence , which occurred on October 21—22, , as part of Sterling Price 's Missouri expedition of , also resulted in a Confederate triumph. Once again their victory proved hollow, as Price was decisively defeated in the pivotal Battle of Westport the next day, effectively ending Confederate efforts to regain Missouri. After the Civil War, Kansas City grew rapidly. Joseph Railroad bridge over the Missouri River brought about significant growth.
The population exploded after , when the Hannibal Bridge, designed by Octave Chanute , opened. The boom prompted a name change to Kansas City in , and the city limits to be extended south and east.
Westport became part of Kansas City on December 2, In , Kansas City was the 22nd largest city in the country, with a population of , residents. Kansas City, guided by landscape architect George Kessler , became a leading example of the City Beautiful movement, offering a network of boulevards and parks.
The relocation of Union Station to its current location in and the opening of the Liberty Memorial in provided two of the city's most identifiable landmarks. Robert A. Long , president of the Liberty Memorial Association, was a driving force in the funding for construction.
Long was a longtime resident and wealthy businessman. He built the R. Nichols in , as part of his Country Club District plan. The Kansas City streetcar system once had hundreds of miles of streetcars running through the city and was one of the largest systems in the country. The last run of the streetcar was on June 23, , but the tunnel still exists. At the start of the 20th century, political machines gained clout in the city, with the one led by Tom Pendergast dominating the city by Several important buildings and structures were built during this time, including the Kansas City City Hall and the Jackson County Courthouse.
During this time, he aided one of his nephew's friends, Harry S. Truman in a political career. Truman eventually became a senator, then vice-president, then president. His biographers have summed up Pendergast's uniqueness:. Pendergast may bear comparison to various big-city bosses, but his open alliance with hardened criminals, his cynical subversion of the democratic process, his monarchistic style of living, his increasingly insatiable gambling habit, his grasping for a business empire, and his promotion of Kansas City as a wide-open town with every kind of vice imaginable, combined with his professed compassion for the poor and very real role as city builder, made him bigger than life, difficult to characterize.
Kansas City's suburban development began with a streetcar system in the early decades of the 20th century. The city's first suburbs were in the neighborhoods of Pendleton Heights and Quality Hill. Many also went north of the Missouri River , where Kansas City had incorporated areas between the s and s. Troost Avenue , once the eastern edge of Kansas City, Mo. This led to the dominating economic success of neighboring Johnson County.
In , African Americans represented At this time, slums were forming in the inner city, and many who could afford to do so left for the suburbs and outer areas of the city. The city's population continued to grow, but the inner city declined.
The city's most populous ethnic group, non-Hispanic whites, [23] declined from In , the city had about , residents; by , it was home to only about , From to , the city more than doubled its physical size, while increasing its population by only about 75, By , the city covered approximately square miles km 2 , more than five times its size in The Hyatt Regency walkway collapse was a major disaster that occurred on July 17, , killing people and injuring more than others during a tea dance in the story Hyatt Regency hotel in Crown Center.
It is the deadliest structural collapse in US history other than the September 11 attacks. One of the main goals is to attract convention and tourist dollars, office workers, and residents to downtown KCMO. By , the arena was being converted to a sports complex under the name Hy-Vee Arena. Construction was scheduled to start in early with Loews as the operator.
From to , downtown residential population in Kansas City quadrupled and continues to grow. The area has grown from almost 4, residents in the early s to nearly 30, as of [update].
While the residential population of downtown has boomed, the office population has dropped significantly from the early s to the mids. AMC and other top employers moved their operations to modern office buildings in the suburbs. High office vacancy plagued downtown, leading to the neglect of many office buildings.
Swiss Re, Virgin Mobile, AutoAlert, and others have begun to move operations to downtown Kansas City from the suburbs as well as expensive coastal cities. The area has seen additional development through various transportation projects, including improvements to the Grandview Triangle , which intersects Interstates and , and U. Route In , voters approved the formation of a TDD to expand the streetcar line south 3. Citywide, voter support for rail projects continues to grow with numerous light rail projects in the works.
In , Jackson County, Missouri, acquired unused rail lines as part of a long-term commuter rail plan. For the time being, the line is being converted to a trail while county officials negotiate with railroads for access to tracks in Downtown Kansas City.
The city has an area of Kansas City proper is bowl-shaped and is surrounded to the north and south by glacier -carved limestone and bedrock cliffs. Kansas City is at the confluence between the Dakota and Minnesota ice lobes during the maximum late Independence glaciation of the Pleistocene epoch. The Kansas and Missouri rivers cut wide valleys into the terrain when the glaciers melted and drained. A partially filled spillway valley crosses the central city.
This valley is an eastward continuation of the Turkey Creek Valley. It is the closest major city to the geographic center of the contiguous United States, or "Lower 48". Kansas City, Missouri, comprises more than [37] neighborhoods, some with histories as independent cities or as the sites of major events. The four industrial artworks atop the support towers of the Kansas City Convention Center Bartle Hall were once the subject of ridicule, but now define the night skyline near the T-Mobile Center along with One Kansas City Place Missouri's tallest office tower , the KCTV-Tower Missouri's tallest freestanding structure and the Liberty Memorial , a World War I memorial and museum that flaunts simulated flames and smoke billowing into the night skyline.
Kansas City hosts more than working fountains, especially on the Country Club Plaza. Designs range from French-inspired traditional to modern. Since its inception in , City Market has been one of the largest and most enduring public farmers' markets in the American Midwest, linking growers and small businesses to the community.
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