This Week in KC History
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Wrong Way Corrigan
March 31, 1882: In an editorial, The Kansas City Star declared its opposition to the streetcar monopoly then held by Thomas Corrigan. Although William Rockhill Nelson, owner of The Star, generally preferred that…
The Wight Stuff
January 22, 1882: Future architect William Drewin Wight was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In 1911, he joined his older brother, Thomas, in Kansas City, where they created the architectural firm of Wight & Wight. The firm went…
Exodusters Mark the Spot
April 25, 1879: The Wyandotte Commercial Gazette reported that more than 1,000 destitute African Americans had arrived in Wyandotte City (present-day Kansas City, Kansas) in just two weeks. With a total population of…
Katz in the Cradle
March 8, 1879: Isaac "Ike" Katz, who would go on to found the Katz Drug Co. in Kansas City and become a pioneer in the modern pharmacy business, was born in the town of Husiatin in western Ukraine (then a part of Russia) on March…
Muffin Man
September 13, 1870: Fred Wolferman, who will lead the family Kansas City grocery store to a successful purveyor of luxury food goods (especially Wolferman's English muffins), is born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Thirteen years later…
Bridge to the Future
July 3, 1869: Hannibal Bridge officially opened as an anxious crowd of 40,000 people looked on from the shores of the Missouri River. It was a spectacular turnout for a town that just four years before only had a population of 4,…
Gettysburg of the West
October 23, 1864: The Battle in Westport pitted Confederate General Sterling Price against Union General Samuel Curtis in the largest Civil War battle fought west of the Mississippi River. General Price had begun the invasion of…
Evacuation Day
August 25, 1863: Union General Thomas E. Ewing issued Order No. 11 to forcibly remove all residents of Jackson, Bates, and Cass counties, except for those who lived within a mile of Kansas City, Westport, Independence, or one of…
The Way to Santa Fe
August 10, 1825: The U.S. government acquired a right-of-way for the Santa Fe Trail from representatives of the Great and Little Osage Nations. The treaty, and others like it, greatly reduced tensions between Native Americans and…
Strangers in a Strange Land
June 26, 1804: The Corps of Discovery, led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, arrived in the area that would later become Kansas City. The party was commissioned by the United States government to explore lands in and west of…