Town of Kansas

Town of Kansas. . , On June 26, 1804 the Lewis and Clark Expedition known as President Jefferson's Corps of Discovery passed this place on their way west. , In 1825, treaties with the Kaw and Osage Indians opened up for settlement an area between Fort Osage to the east and the Missouri state line. , In 1830, under the national Indian Removal Act, tribes east of the Mississippi River were moved west of the Missouri River permitting the subsequent establishment between 1830 and 1854 of a westernmost commercial outpost which would become Kansas City. , In 1832, Francois Chouteau with his Illinois bride Berenice, built the first warehouses for storing westbound steamboat-delivered goods to Francois Chouteau's Landing in 'Chouteau's Town' at the Missouri River and today's Olive Street. , In 1833, John Calvin McCoy from Kentucky, with J.P. Hickman and J.H. Flournoy, established a frontier village later known as Westport, trading furs with Shawnee, Delaware and Kansa Indian Tribes while outfitting missionaries and settlers westbound on the Santa Fe and Oregon Trail. , In 1834, to avoid a three-day wagon round-trip to the east river port of Independence to replenish his goods, McCoy looked for a closer site to receive his steamboat deliveries. On this site, four miles north of his trading post, he discovered a natural rock ledge on the south bank of the Missouri River, east of the Kansas River, west of Chouteau's Town on property of the original settler, Gabriel Prudhomme. Thereafter, he had his trade goods delivered here shortening his replenishment trips to one day. Initially referred to as the 'west' port, it became known as the 'Kansas' or 'Westport' Landing. , After his death, Prudhomme's property of 257 acres including the landing, despite its several deep ravines, was sold by his family on November 14, 1838 for $4,220 at a court-ordered public sale to a fourteen-man town company including McCoy. They named it the town of ‘Kansas' after the nearby Kansa Indian Tribe. Both the river to the west and its state were named accordingly. In like fashion, both the Missouri River and this state took their names respectively from another nearby Indian Tribe, the 'Missouris'. , On June 3, 1850 after platting by McCoy, the town was chartered the town of 'Kansas' by the County Court of Jackson County (founded 1827): then in 1853, as the City of Kansas, and finally in 1889, Kansas City. Because of its strategic location, Kansas City became young America's second leading cattle market and railroad hub. , Notwithstanding its original importance as a trading center with protection from nearby Fort Leavenworth, for those easterners, European emigrants and a few slaves in search of a better life, Westport Landing became the trails gateway for those westbound on the Santa Fe, Oregon and California Trails.