EXCELSIOR SPRINGS

city, astride the RayClay county line, western Missouri, U.S., 12 miles (19 km) northeast of Kansas City. Founded in 1880, it developed as a health resort noted for its mineral waters. Now, while mainly residential, it still maintains ties with its past through its Hall of Waters (1938), which claims the world's longest mineral-water bar, and through the sale of bottled waters. Other economic activities are agriculture (corn , oats, and wheat) and light manufactures (chiefly plastic). The birthplace of the outlaw Jesse James, and the Watkins Woolen Mill (1861), a national historic landmark, are a few miles north. Inc. village, 1881; city, 1886. Pop. (1990) 10,354.