KANSAS CITY, Mo., the second in the State of Missouri and the 20th in population in the United States, is located in the north western part of Jackson County in the angle formed by the Kansas River at its junc tion with the Missouri. Kansas City, Kan., while in an adjoining State, is served by the same railroad terminals, the same street car service and the same telephone system. These two cities are contiguous, their only division being an imaginary State line. At the inter section of Fourteenth and Washington streets the latitude is 39° north and the longitude is 94° 36' 16.18" west.
The original site of Kansas City presented a rugged, precipitous and un inviting aspect,— high bluffs composed chiefly of limestone facing the Kansas River as it sweeps in from the southwest, thence veering west of north till it empties into the Missouri River, thence continuing along the south bank of the Missouri River four miles to the valley of the Big Blue. Owing to the changeable nature of the Missouri River in cutting through the bottom land on either side of it, the town had to be built between the river and the bluffs, along the deep ravines and on the hills. Per sons who see the city as it is now can scarcely realize the obstructions that had to be removed in grading down streets to a level and in fill ing cuts. The city is topographically divided into three parts, one, the largest, including all that part of the town on the highlands, extend ing east and south into level upland which is of great beauty; the West Bottoms, including the lowlands lying between the State line on the west and the east bluff of the Kansas River, and the East Bottom which takes in all the lowland lying east of the foot of Grand avenue where it runs to the Missouri River. All of the site was originally covered with dense forests, and it was not till after the Civil War that the timber was cut off the West Bot toms; since then it has become the busiest part of Kansas City, in which are located the stock yards, elevators, most of the local freight depots and a large part of the wholesale busi ness houses of the city. From its earliest his tory as Westport Landing, Kansas City was noted for its steamboat traffic. Here were landed the goods from the Mexican and Indian trade, west and southwest, and in exchange were received the wool, furs, buffalo robes and other articles for the Eastern markets. The location of the city at the most southern bend eastward in the Missouri River, even before the age of continental railroads, was the nat ural route through which the Santa Fe and the Indian trade of the west and southwest must pass to be exchanged for the products these people desired.
The men who contributed so much toward making Kansas City the metrop olis of the Missouri Valley turned their at tention to the grain and produce market of this vast region in the 70's of last century. From a small local trade in 1871 of a few hundred thousand bushels of grain handled that year, the business has grown now to 100,000,000 bushels annually. In a recent year there were received 77,786,650 bushels of wheat, 22,186,250 bushels of corn, 7,961,100 bushels of oats, 414,700 bushels of rye, 2,043,000 bushels of barley and 436,000 tons of hay (it is the largest hay market in the world), while the export of grain was 36,206,400 bushels. In the elevators and mills the storage capacity is 24,165,000 bushels, while the total mill products aggregate 2,900,000 barrels. The numerous grain eleva tors enable the railroads to handle the trans port grain to other points with facility and dis patch. Its title as the °greatest winter wheat market" is known in foreign countries, to which millions of bushels of Kansas, Nebraska, Mis souri and Oklahoma grain are annually shipped by Kansas City exporters. It is not alone as a centre for the accumulation of wheat, corn and oats that it is famous, but also as a distributing point for cereals to be consumed in the South, East and in foreign countries. Kansas City s bank clearings in 1918 were $9,940,881,940 and the bank deposits were about $280,000,000. At present Kansas City occupies the second posi tion in the world as a live-stock market. The stock-yards are the most convenient for the quick and safe handling of stock in the United States. The aggregate value of live-stock han dled annually is about $200,000,000. The packing houses are eight in number, having a com bined capacity for daily slaughter of 15,000 cat tle, 50,000 hogs and 15,000 sheep. These prod ucts are marketed in every civilized country. The stock-yards cover 207 acres, containing 3,688 cattle-pens. The receipts of cattle at the stock-yards for 1918 were 2,993,776; hogs, 3,327,722; sheep, 1,667,463; horses and mules, 84,628; shipped in 161,812 cars. The cost of the packing plants is estimated at $15,000,000 and the number of hands employed approxi mates 20,000; while the annual value of the output is over $231,150,000. In 1918 the whole sale trade exceeded $629,000,000.