Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City

Pioneers and soldiers, jazz musicians and cattle ranchers, traders and Native Americans would come to define Kansas City. In 1804, legendary explorers Louis and Clark approached the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers, deeming the towering bluffs and bedrock cliffs an ideal spot for a fort. Settlers soon followed, establishing the area as a trading post and, in 1850, founding incorporated Kansas City – named for the Kansa tribe inhabiting the Missouri River. By then, the dust of wagon trails stirred through town as adventurers rolled westward, along the Oregon, California and Santa Fe trails. In the 1860s, the Civil War era enveloped the city with “Bleeding Kansas,” as citizens…