Air is washed and dried before it enters the wards. The ventilating system is arranged so that it will not be necessary at any time to open a window; thus drafts will be avoided. The wards have a constant supply of pure air at the desired temperature. Two fans, sixteen feet in diameter, pump each minute 57,000 cubic feet of air into the building. The air enters the building through shafts in the walls of the second and third story. Passing through a long shaft, the air enters the "washer" where it is forced through a spray of water. By this process, it is cleansed of dust and germs. From the "washer" the air passes into the "dryer," a strong solution of lime. Hot coils absorb the water extracted. The air enters the wards through "registers," high on the walls, that are controlled automatically. In summer time the air will be cooled and in winter it will be heated. The building is heated by hot blast and steam, the degree of warmth being regulated by thermostats. CHAPTER XXIV. REVIVAL OF RIVER TRANSPORTATION. As early as 1857, the wharfmaster's report showed that more than 700 boats landed at the port of Kansas City in one year. This was before the advent of the railroads. Steamboat traffic decreased in the Civil war, followed by a revival in the latter '60s. The Missouri river, affording the best means of transportation between St. Louis and Kansas City in the early days, carried an important commerce. The freight rates were high and the boats made money, notwithstanding a recklessness in the matter of expenditures. In his history of the Missouri river, Phil. E. Chappel speaks of travel upon the river as follows: "The first navigator on the Missouri river was the little blue-winged teal; the next the Indian, with his canoe; then came the half-civilized French Canadian voyageur, with his pirogue, paddling upstream or cordelling around the swift points. At a later day came the furtrader, with his keel-boat; still later there came up from below the little "dingey" the single-engine, one-boiler steamboat. At last the evolution was complete and there came the magnificent passenger steamer of the '50s, the floating palace of the palmy days of steamboating, combining in her construction every improvement that experience had suggested or the ingenuity of man had devised to increase the speed or add to the safety and comfort of the passenger." The railroads with more regular and rapid service and with more systematic and economical management, were able to meet the water rates, and the fact that the boat owners did not grasp the needs of the situation and reduce expenses in order to lower rates, helped to establish the railroads as the carriers of the bulk of the freight. The rates made by the railroads were lower at that time than they are now. As commerce began to leave the Missouri river, railroad rates advanced until Kansas City business men felt the necessity of seeking relief by restoring river transportation. The history of the persistent and long continued efforts of the leading citizens and capitalists of Kansas City to secure for the city the benefits of river navigation is interesting, not alone on account of its importance, but as showing the patient perseverance that characterizes the business men in Kansas City. As soon as the decline of steamboating on the Missouri river became apparent, the residents of Kansas City began urging the necessity of establishing a barge line between Kansas City and St. Louis. The panic of 1873 interfered with the project. One of the first acts of the Committee of Commerce of the Board of Trade in 1879 was to petition Congress for an appropriation to improve the Missouri river. A party of United States engineers, under the direction of J. W. Nier, arrived in Kansas City in May, 1879, and began the work of improving the Missouri river a few miles north of the city, an appropriation of $30,000 having been made for that purpose. The navigation of the Missouri river by barges which had been successfully begun in 1878 was abandoned on account of the railroad war that temporarily reduced freight rates. Before the project was abandoned, however, the Star Packet line had made arrangements to operate one barge with each of its packets, and another company had caused a tug and tow to be built especially for the Missouri river traffic. A barge line company with a capital of $100,000 was organized in Kansas City in 1880, and one boat and four barges were purchased for use on the Missouri river. But because of lack of business the barge fleet was transferred to the Mississippi river. A river improvement convention was held in St. Louis, Mo., in October, 1881. It was attended by delegates from Kansas City and other cities in the Missouri river valley. A similar river improvement convention was held in St. Joseph, Mo., in November, 1881. Various attempts were made to revive river navigation in the '80s. T. B. Bullene and Colonel Theodore S. Case went to Washington, from Kansas City in January, 1888, as delegates to the Western Waterways convention. The two delegates urged the necessity of an appropriation sufficient to place the Missouri river in a navigable condition. The Kansas City & Missouri River Packet company was incorporated under the laws of Missouri, with a paid up capital of $132,500, in Feburary, 1890. This company was organized for the purpose of navigating the Missouri with commercial freight carriers. The following were the incorporators: A. L. Mason, Thomas Corrigan, Adam Long, J. F. Richards, A. R. Meyer, E. A. Phillips, S. B. Armour, A. W. Armour, A. K. Ruxton, T. B. Bullene, J. F. Corle, P. H. Soden, and F. S. Treadway. The company built three boats known as the A. L. Mason, State of Kansas and State of Missouri. The steamer A. L. Mason was brought into the Missouri river in July, 1891, and continued in service in the spring and summer trade until the close of navigation in 1894. The boat then was loaded at St. Louis for New Orleans, but met with an accident near Friars Point, Miss., that resulted in total destruction. The boat had a cargo of about twelve hundred tons when it was destroyed. The steamer State of Kansas was used in the Ohio and Mississippi rivers more than in the Missouri, although it made several trips here before the company sold it to Captain T. B. Simms of St. Louis, in 1893. The boat was kept in service about two years by Captain Simms, when he sold it. Later the boat was destroyed by fire. The steamer State of Missouri was used in the Ohio river trade as long as the company owned it and finally was purchased by a packet company with headquarters in Cincinnati, O. The conditions that confronted the Kansas City & Missouri River Packet company, both in Kansas City and in St. Louis, in regard to unfair railroad competition, were such that it was impossible to make the boats pay expenses. The steamer State of Missouri was sold to pay debts that were by the packet company incurred almost at the outset. The losses incurred in operating the other two steamboats on account of unfair railroad competition, became so great that the company was compelled to sell the steamer State of Kansas. This left only one boat clear of indebtedness. The last two years it was in operation it was kept in the service very largely by voluntary contributions of the Kansas City shippers, who realized that as long as the company existed and had one or more boats in service that freight rates would be lower. When the steamer A. L. Mason was destroyed, the company ceased operations. The company had operated boats more or less regularly for about four years. The Kansas City & Missouri River Packet company, in its brief career, caused freight rates to be lowered, and for this reason is not regarded as a failure. The experiment established the fact that water competition existed at Kansas City and that the railroads must meet it. Nothing further was done toward navigating the Missouri river until September, 1906. Congressman E. C. Ellis of the Fifth District of Missouri and a member of the Rivers and Harbors committee of Congress, called a meeting of the representative citizens and members of the principal commercial bodies of Kansas City, Mo., and Kansas City, Kas., July 30, 1906, for the |