Kansas City, Missouri Skyline, courtesy of Wikimedia.
Town of Kansas – Before Kansas City
More Kansas City:
Historical People of Kansas City
Downtown Kansas City, Missouri, by Kathy Alexander.
Fountain at the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, Missouri, by Kathy Alexander.
Kansas City, Missouri, is the largest city in the state by population and area. In 2020, its population was 508,090. Most of the city lies within Jackson County, with portions spilling into Clay, Cass, and Platte Counties. It serves as one of the two county seats of Jackson County, with the other in the satellite city of Independence. It is the central city of the Kansas City metropolitan area, which straddles the Missouri-Kansas state line and has a population of 2,392,035.
Kansas City started when François Chouteau and his family established a trading post for John Jacob Astor’s American Fur Company in 1821. Chouteau’s Landing was located near the North end of Grand Avenue. It soon became the area’s first permanent European-American settlement. When the tribe signed a treaty in 1925, it ceded its remaining lands in western Missouri, opening the way for increased settlement. This area, straddling the border between Missouri and Kansas at the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers, soon became a strategic point for commerce and security. Soon, more French fur traders arrived and built rough cabins along the river.
©Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, updated October 2026.
Covered wagon in Independence, Missouri, by Kathy Alexander.
Also See:
Sources:
Bone, D.M.; Kansas City Annual, Volume 1, Bishop Press, Kansas City, 1906.
Case, Theodore S.; History of Kansas City, Missouri, D. Mason & Co.; Syracuse, New York, 1888.
Historic Kansas City
Missouri Valley Special Collections
National Park Service
New Santa Fe Trailer
Powell, Lyman P. Historic Towns of the Western States. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1901
Santa Fe Trail Research
Serl, Emma. The Story of Kansas City, Kansas City Board of Education, 1924.
Westport Historical
Wikipedia