In the month of June, 1867, construction was begun on the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Gulf railroad under the management of Major B. S. Henning as general superintendent. December 13, 1868, the road was completed to Olathe, Kas., and December 20, 1869, the road was completed to Fort Scott, Kas., one hundred miles. Early the following spring of 1870, this road was completed to Baxter Springs, Kas., 166 miles south of Kansas City. This line now is part of the Frisco system. It is interesting to notice how lines that were started from other Missouri river points as main lines are now branch lines, their main lines running into Kansas City. Ground was broken at Atchison, Kas., June 13, 1860, for the Atchison & Pike's Peak railroad and it was built to Downs, one hundred miles. It is now a system of 440 miles, known as the Central Branch division of the Missouri Pacific railroad. The great system of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe was started from Atchison, Kas., in the summer of 1868, and the first locomotive with a train from Atchison passed over the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe bridge over the Kaw river at Topeka, March 30, 1869. The engine was the "C. K. Holliday." This road was built westward very rapidly, reaching the Colorado line at Granada, January 1, 1873. The first rail was laid on the Lawrence & Topeka railroad, April 11, 1874, afterwards known as the Kansas Midland railroad. As soon as it was completed from Kansas City to Topeka this line was bought by the Santa Fe system and is part of the Santa Fe system's main line from Kansas City to the Pacific coast terminals, San Diego and San Francisco. For the Kansas Midland railroad, Kaw township voted $100,000.00 in bonds and it proved to be a good investment, since it placed Kansas City on the main line between the Pacific coast and Chicago. The Leavenworth, Lawrence & Galveston railroad started at Lawrence. In the year of 1869 it was built to Ottawa. This road was completed from Olathe to Ottawa, August 19, 1870, so as to have a Kansas City connection, using the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Gulf railroad to Olathe. This line was extended to Independence, Kas., and on to Wellington, Kas., and afterwards built an independent line from Kansas City to Olathe. The Leavenworth, Lawrence & Gulf railroad of early days is now a part of the Santa Fe system. The St. Louis & Lawrence railroad was completed from Pleasant Hill, Mo., to Lawrence, Kas., fifty-eight miles, in 1877. This road was a failure. The Missouri, Kansas & Texas railroad built a line from Holden, Mo., to Paola, Kas., in 1872, another cut-off that was of no value. Kaw township voted $150,000 in bonds for the Kansas City & Northwestern railroad, in 1872. These bonds afterwards were re-voted for the Kansas City & Eastern railroad, a narrow gauge railroad that was built from Kansas City to Independence and Lexington, Mo. This investment proved to be a failure and was disastrous to all who invested their money in the enterprise. The road finally became a part of the Missouri Pacific system and was made a broad gauge line, it is now (1908) the Lexington division. The Cameron branch of the Hannibal & St. Joseph railroad that reached Harlem August 22, 1867, is now the main line of the Burlington system and the branch is from Cameron to St. Joseph. The north Missouri railroad, now the Wabash railroad, was built from Moberly west and completed to Harlem, December 8, 1868. The Hannibal & St. Joseph; the North Missouri & Kansas City; and the St. Joseph & Council Bluffs railroads had their terminals at Harlem, from eight to ten months before the Missouri river bridge was completed. After the opening of the bridge, July 3, 1869, the three railroads crossed the river, and with the Kansas Pacific, the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Gulf; and the Leavenworth, Lawrence & Galveston railroads occupied the first Union depot in Kansas City. In the spring of 1870, the Missouri Pacific railway built the incline that brought the trains through the "gooseneck," giving them an entrance to the Union depot, on the site of the present depot. This building afterwards burned, and the present depot was built. The Union depot was completed and occupied April 7, 1878. The total cost, including the land, was $410,028. The depot company was organized under an act of the Missouri legislature passed in 1871. The bill was introduced by St. Louis people and gave authority for the old Union station in St. Louis, but its provisions were general and a company was organized in Kansas City, October 28, 1875, taking advantage of the law. The incorporators were George H. Nettleton, Wallace Pratt, C. H. Prescott, T. F. Oakes and B. S. Henning. The company secured some of its land by dedication, but most of it by condemnation proceedings in July, 1877. The Union depot was remodeled in 1880 at a cost of $224,083. The Chicago & Alton railroad built west from Mexico, Mo., to Kansas City and completed its line May 11, 1879, to Kansas City. The Kansas City, Fort Scott & Gulf railroad built a line from Olathe to Springfield, via Clinton. Later the "Blair road," known as the Kansas City, Osceola & Springfield, was built. Both these lines were taken over by the Frisco system. Later the Kansas City, Wyandotte & Northwestern railroad was built and bought by the Missouri Pacific system. In later years came the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific railroad from Chicago through Kansas City to Denver, El Paso and Fort Worth; the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railroad south to Denison, San Antonio and Galveston; the Frisco system to Tennessee, Oklahoma and Texas; the Kansas City Southern railroad to Texarkana, Shreveport and Port Arthur on the Gulf of Mexico; the Chicago, Great Western railroad to St. Paul, Minneapolis and Chicago; the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul to Chicago and the great Northwest; the St. Joseph & Grand Island railroad to St. Joseph and Grand Island, Neb., The Quincy, Omaha & Kansas City, Kansas City to Quincy. The Kansas City, Mexico & Orient railroad, the short line to the Pacific ocean, was partly completed in 1908. Some of the railroad officials who co-operated with Kansas City in the early days in making it a great railroad center were: Octave Chanute, George H. Nettleton, D. R. Garrison, Oliver Garrison, Thomas McKissock, T. F. Oakes, Sly T. Smith, C. W. Mead, L. W. Towne, C. F. Morse and Jay Gould. These were the early railroad builders of Kansas City and had the confidence of James T. Joy and the Adams family of Boston and other noted Eastern capitalists, who had faith in their works and furnished the money to carry out their plans. CHAPTER XII. REALTY IN KANSAS CITY. The most prosperous cities, it is recognized, are those in which real estate transactions show greatest activity and in which values are on a solid basis. The early history of Kansas City real estate does not differ materially from that of other new western towns, and the only abnormal conditions that ever existed here were caused by the boom of 1886-87. At that time values were on a plane entirely out of relation to the business and population of the city. but all evil effects of that period gradually were wiped out in the slow period of liquidation extending to 1903. Outsiders who had lost money as a result of their ill-advised operations, were disposed for a time to distrust the real estate business in Kansas City. The home people, appreciating the evil effects of over-speculation, became very conservative, and as a result Kansas City real estate for several years was considered as worth what it would bring, just as it is in many old and settled communities. This sort of judgment was carried too far, and prices on inside business property and choice outside residence properties had a steady and slow growth. Up to about 1900, $2,000 a front foot was considered a high price for inside retail business property and $60 a foot an extravagant price for choice residence lots. This condition continued in spite of the tremendous prosperity in Kansas City's trade territory, resulting from the bumper crops of the period from 1896 to 1908. The holders of business property did not improve it, and rents became abnormally high considering the character of the buildings. To men who traveled and learned |