KANSAS CITY

city, Clay, Jackson, and Platte counties, western Missouri, U.S., on the Missouri River, at the mouth of the Kansas (locally, the Kaw) River. Contiguous with Kansas City, Kansas, it forms part of an urban complex that also includes Olathe, Prairie Village, and Overland Park in Kansas and Independence, Liberty, Gladstone, Raytown, Lee's Summit, Grandview, and North Kansas City in Missouri. French fur traders, led by Franois Chouteau, were the first permanent settlers (1821), and Westport was laid out in 1833 and flourished as an outfitting post for western overland expeditions. Meanwhile, Chouteau's settlement, known as Westport Landing, prospered as a river port and as the terminus for the Santa Fe and Oregon trails. It was chartered as the town of Kansas (named for the river) in 1850 and as a city in 1853. It became Kansas City under an 1889 charter in order to distinguish it from the territory. During the American Civil War, the city was sharply divided and was the target of several skirmishes, including raids by the Confederate guerrilla William C. Quantrill. Rapid growth followed after Kansas City was reached (1865) by a railroad from St. Louis and linked with the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad (1869) by bridge across the Missouri River. Kansas City is now the marketing and shipping centre for a vast agricultural region and has a livestock exchange and stockyards and extensive grain-storage, meat-packing, and food-processing facilities. Its diversified industries include the manufacture of machinery, transportation equipment, steel, and chemicals, oil refining, auto assembling, and printing and publishing. Nearby Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant (De Soto, Kansas) and Lake City Army Ammunition Plant (Independence, Missouri) are additional economic assets. The University of Missouri at Kansas City was opened in 1963; colleges and institutions include Rockhurst (1910), Avila (1916), and several Metropolitan Community colleges, the Midwest Research Institute, the Missouri Institute of Technology (1931), the Kansas City College of Osteopathy and Medicine, and the Kansas City Art Institute (1895). Kansas City is the world headquarters for the Church of the Nazarene, the Unity School of Christianity, and the People-to-People Exchange Program. The American Royal Livestock, Horse Show, and Rodeo is an annual event. The Liberty Memorial is a 217-foot (66-metre) World War I monument near Union Station. Nearby are the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of ArtAtkins Museum of Fine Arts, the Lone Jack Civil War Museum, and Missouri Town 1855, a preservation of pioneer buildings at Lake Jacomo. Swope Park contains an open-air theatre and zoo. Kemper Arena (1975) hosts special shows and also serves as a sports facility. The Harry S. Truman Sports Complex houses Kansas City's gridiron-football and baseball teams in two side-by-side stadiums. The Crown Center, an 85-acre (34-hectare) cultural and business centre, opened in 1973. Pop. (1990) city, 434,829; Kansas City MSA, 1,582,874; (1996 est.) city, 441,259; Kansas City MSA, 1,690,343. city, seat of Wyandotte county, northeastern Kansas, U.S., at the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri rivers and contiguous with Kansas City, Mo. Present-day Kansas City was formed by the consolidation of eight separate towns. The earliest, Wyandotte, was bought from an Indian tribe, laid out in 1857 by a town company, and incorporated in 1859. The founding of rival settlements by proslavery and Abolitionist supporters after passage of the KansasNebraska Act (1854) brought rapid development. Wyandotte was the site of the writing of the Kansas constitution, under which the territory entered the Union in 1861. In 1863 Wyandotte became the eastern terminus of the Union Pacific, Eastern Division (later the Kansas Pacific), the first transcontinental railroad. Vast herds of Texas cattle were driven to Kansas Pacific railheads, and Wyandotte became a major marketing and reshipment point and, by the 1870s, the site of stockyards and meat-packing plants. Old Kansas City and Riverview (which became a part of Wyandotte in 1880) developed during the 1870s. The settlement of Armstrong developed on a hill south of Wyandotte. North of the Kansas River an industrial district, Armourdale, named for a meat-packing plant, was laid out in 1880. South of the Kansas, Argentine grew up around the Santa Fe shops and rail yards and became the site of a smelter. These, except for Argentine (annexed in 1910), combined as a first-class city on March 6, 1886, taking the name Kansas City. Rosedale, south of the Kansas, seat of the University of Kansas Medical Center, was annexed in 1922. Absorbed earlier was Quindaro, which had been founded by antislavery leaders as a free port on the Missouri. Serious damage was inflicted by floods in 1903, 1951, and 1977. The city is now the site of a large proportion of the heavy industry of the Kansas City metropolitan area and is a leading meat-packing centre. Manufactures include chemicals, paper goods, automobiles, railroad cars, petroleum and soap products, fabricated steel, and dairy and agricultural commodities. In addition to the medical centre, Kansas City is the seat of Donnelly (junior) College (1949), Kansas City Kansas Community College (1923), a Baptist seminary, and the Kansas State School for the Visually Handicapped. Of interest are the Agricultural Hall of Fame and National Center, the Shawnee Methodist Mission (1839), and the Wyandotte County Museum. Pop. (1990) city, 149,767; Kansas City MSA, 1,566,280 (MissouriKansas).