Local History Blog
A City Illustrated: The S. Stephen Lispi Collection
Missouri Valley Special Collections staff recently processed the S. Stephen Lispi Collection containing the work of an artist who, during his career of over 60 years, crafted some of the most recognizable images in Kansas City. The collection not…
The Hardware Company That Ruled Them All
This series of items comes from the recently processed SC193 Richards…
Sorting Cattle from Chaos: Processing the Kansas City Stockyards Collection
While the word "chaos" may seem a bit extreme, it is often what an archivist sees when confronted with a large collection that has no original order. Before Missouri Valley Special Collections (MVSC) staff acquired the Kansas City Stockyards…
The American Royal: A Gift from the Stockyards
As a beloved and longstanding institution, the American Royal owes much of its early success to the Kansas City Stock Yards (KCSY) Company. The bond between the Stockyards and the growing organization was certainly one of mutual benefit. The…
Kansas City’s Livestock Hotel: Daily Operations at the Stockyards
Imagine driving through the West Bottoms on October 19, 1943, when the Kansas City Stock Yards (KCSY) Company set a world record by receiving 64,015 head of cattle in a single day. For perspective, in its first year of operations, 1871, the…
Rivers, Roads, and Railways: Catalyst for Development
Sitting at the confluence of two rivers near the edge of the western frontier, the area we know today as Kansas City seemed destined to become a major transportation hub between the East and West.
In reality, it was a combination of enterprising…
Unionization Comes to the Slaughterhouse
In the late 19th century, livestock and meatpacking industries had spurred Kansas City’s growth into an industrial giant. Almost 200,000 miles of railroad tracks covered the United States, and the refrigerator car had been patented, improved, and…
Devastation and Controversy: A History of Floods in the West Bottoms
The beginning of the end came for the Kansas City Stockyards in July 1951 when the West Bottoms suffered the worst flood in the city’s history, one from which the industrial district never fully recovered.
Standing on the second floor of the…
Cattlemen and Visionaries: The Men Who Made the Stockyards
Kansas City claimed a population of just 4,418 in the 1860 census. With the opening of the Hannibal Bridge in 1869, and the arrival of the cattle trade and development of the stockyards, the city exploded onto the world stage, boasting the second…
Kansas City Cattle King: Relics of the Stockyards
“Paris of the Plains,” the “City of Fountains,” and more recently the “Soccer Capital of America” are all names that come to mind when one thinks of Greater Kansas City. Or at least that’s how boosters have tried to promote the city in an effort to…