from the Kansas City Police Officers Memorial Web site:
http://www.kcpolicememorial.com/history/kchistory.html
Selected events
1830---The Indian Removal Act brings the Shawnees, the Delawares, and the Wyandots to the area. The Miamis, the Ottawas, the Kickapoos, the Potawatomis, the Weas and Peorias, the Iowas and the Sacs and Foxes also show up. The "emigrant Indians" will bring with them enormous buying power.
1832---Many of the Delawares die after drinking so much liquor.
1850---On June 3rd, the Town of Kansas becomes a municipality when it is chartered by the county court...
African-Americans represent one in 5 Jackson County residents. Of 14,000 people, 2,969 are slaves. The free black population is only 41.
1855---So many slaves are being stolen in Jackson County that in November Kansas City imposes a curfew forbidding blacks or mulattos, slave or free, to be on the streets from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. without a pass. They are also forbidden to assemble at night. (Fang's comment: Development of jazz in Kansas City meets early roadblock).
1857---Local officials pass laws including: "No person shall deposit any dead animal, or any excrement or filth from privies upon any ground in this city." (Fang's comment: A terrible setback for the filth movement of the 1850s).
1861---The U.S. Army builds Camp Union at 10th and Central streets over the summer. It has walls, a guardhouse, and a 12-pound howitzer. (Fang: The first use of "Shock and Awe" as a military strategy).
1863---4 woman relatives of Southern guerrilla leaders die when their temporary prison on Grand south of 14th Street collapses. One is the sister of "Bloody Bill" Anderson. 8 days later, Lawrence is burned and about 150 people are killed. 4 days after that, Brigadier General Thomas Ewing issues his General Order No. 11 (painted here by George Caleb Bingham), forcing all residents of Jackson, Cass, Bates, and parts of Vernon counties to leave their rural homes within 15 days if they cannot prove their loyalty to the Union to the satisfaction of Army authorities. John Calvin McCoy moves to Glasgow where he conducts his business as best he can.
Two-thirds of the population of the border counties is gone.
1869--Annie Chambers arrives in Kansas City and sets up a brothel on the north side of the river. Her business is an instant smash. A flourishing ferry delivers her loyal following for 3 years until she relocates in the town proper. (Fang: Nothing but good times ahead).
1870s---The city develops as a market for grain, a stockyard center, and a meat-packing and flour-milling center during the next 2 decades.
1871---Railroad men and others organize the Kansas City Stockyards. The West Bottoms becomes the feeding place for cattle found for Chicago.
1878---The (Kansas City) Times labels Kansas City a Modern Sodom. The population is close to 50,000. The 80 saloons in KC are 3 times as numerous as the number of churches, and 4 times the number of schools, colleges, libraries, and hospitals combined. (Fang: The edges of the city suddently become populated with human-sized pillars of salt. No one can explain the phenomenon).
1880---The Kansas City Evening Star profiles local drag queens under the headline "Strange Men."
1881---Irish poet Oscar Wilde lectures on aesthetics at Coates Opera House on April 17th. (Fang: Was Oscar Wilde here to criticize Kansas City's drag queen aesthetic? Coincidence? )
People are driven from their homes and workers from the meatpacking plants when Kansas City is inundated by the flood of 1881. (Fang: I wonder if Jerry Falwell's grandfather blamed the flooding on the tolerance of drag queens?)
1916---The Pendergast machine gained control of the police department and used it to aid Kansas City prostitutes. (Fang: KCPD: To Protect and Serve).
1917---Rail traffic through Union Station peaks during WWI-with 79,368 trains passing through the Station, including 271 trains in one day. (Fang: Averaged 11 trains per hour daily; One arriving every 5.3 minutes)
A fire strikes the stockyards in the West Bottoms, killing 17,000 cattle and hogs and destroying half the structures in the yards. Damages are estimated at $1.7 million. (Fang: Barbeque is invented).
1923---Kansas City has 26 beauty parlors and 19 Piggly Wiggly grocery stores. (Fang: "say 'oink' to the checkout clerk and save a nickel").
1924---In Kansas City, Kansas, the Ku Klux Klan holds its national "klonvokation" in Convention Hall. (Fang: Emery, Bird & Thayer makes out like bandits during their white sale).
1925---Workmen attack the clay hills of the Old Town bluffs with a pressurized water hose. They work day and night for 3 months, applying 400 pounds of pressure and 3,200 gallons of water a minute until the bluffs melt away into the Missouri River. (Fang: No one could figure out why steamboats were constantly running aground near Sugar Creek; and the town is forced to run a river dredge continuously for three months to avoid becoming landlocked. I guess it never occurred to anyone to use the fill dirt to build levees in the West Bottoms to avoid future flooding in 1951 and 1993. :roll:
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1931---Transcontinental and Western Air Inc. (TWA) chooses centrally-located Kansas City for its headquarters in June. Site-selection advisor Charles Lindbergh casts the swing vote over Tulsa.
1932---Rabbi Samuel S. Mayerberg, head of the Temple B'nai Jehudah on East Linwood Boulevard, launches an anti-machine gun crusade--his car is sprayed with gunfire and he begins sleeping with a pistol. (Fang: Ill-advised early attempt at gun control takes an unexpected turn).
1933---Union Station Massacre - One of the most infamous dates in Kansas City history is the Union Station Massacre. Convicted mobster Frank Nash, under escort by a team of FBI agents and police officers was shot and killed outside the Station during a shootout. Four law enforcement officers were also killed...As result of the massacre, Congress strengthened the power of the FBI.
1934---Johnny Lazia, Kansas City underworld chief and Pendergast ally, is shot to death July 10th as he steps out of his chauffeur-driven car in front of his fashionable apartment near Armour Boulevard and Gillham Road. (Fang: Lazia should have listened to Rabbi Mayerberg). (Fang: Lazia lived in the Park Central Hotel apartments, and regularly frequented the El Casbah nightclub in the Bellerive Hotel).
1938--The Christian Science Monitor calls Kansas City "wilder open than any place outside Reno" and attacks its residents for being "astonishingly complacent about it all." (Fang : Public reaction to the newspaper article is lackluster at best).
1939---World War II begins. Kansas City serves as a center of the defense industry. (Fang: And the British didn't name a street after our city. Shame, shame.)
Missouri Attorney General Roy McKeltside made a serious effort at enforcing laws on illegal gambling and the sale of liquor in Kansas City. Governor Lloyd Stark tried to have the Kansas City police department returned to state control. This was accomplished in 1939. In Kansas City gambling and other forms of vice were being protected and criminals from other cities had been finding refuge in the city. The newly appointed police chief found that corruption was general and 50 percent of the police force was dismissed.
1940---A reform group wins control of city government. The Pendergast machine's 15-year domination of city government. John B. Gage is the new mayor. L.P. Cookingham is the new city manager. The downtown slot machines are trucked away. The jazz clubs lose their crowds. (Fang: KC's tourism industry dies. Hey reformers, the slot machines are back).
The Army Air Corps picks the Fairfax district of Kansas City, Kansas, for a bomber plant to run by North
American Aviation. Plans include the employment of between 8,000 and 12,000 persons--the work force will actually top 26,000.
1948---Paseo Massacre - On Monday, September 20, 1948, two officers, Charles Neaves, 30, and Sandy Washington, 26, were dispatched to 1334 Paseo on a disturbance call. The two officers had responded to a call at that address two days earlier and arrested William Bell, on the complaint of Mrs. Helen Rainey. Three officers and an innocent bystander are killed, and two officers are severely wounded. Bell is shot dead.
President Truman is re-elected in a stunning political upset.
1950--Jackson County's population is 541,035. 56,636 are African-Americans. The Kansas City metropolitan area's population is 814,357--that's Jackson and Clay counties in Missouri and Wyandotte and Johnson counties in Kansas.
Joseph Binaggio and Charles Gargotta die in gangland style killings.
1951---The rain falls for 40 days and the Great Flood in July inundates Armourdale and the West Bottoms again, affecting the packinghouse business directly. At least 5 people die. National Guard units take up positions to discourage looting. To better maintain order, Kansas City closes the taverns and package liquor stores. City crews, desperate to save the Municipal Air Terminal, dump junked cars onto the embattled levees to fight the surging water-and keep the airport dry. Many Kansas residents are left homeless and will be relocated to temporary homes in trailers located on the Old Homestead Golf Course. "Trailer City" will be occupied until Christmas of 1952.
After the flood, the Health Department of Kansas City administers 111,711 vaccinations to prevent typhoid fever. No typhus outbreak occurs. A federal official compares the land to the bombed-out cities of Europe in World War II. A nonprofit collective called Disaster Corps Inc. is formed to donate man-hours and equipment for the cleanup. Remembering the test of the city’s mettle in 1900 when the Convention Hall burned down 3 months before the Democratic National Convention, city officials make a point of renovating the American Royal facilities for the show, which open on time in the fall. The country marvels at the collective Kansas City character. Illustrator Norman Rockwell paints “The Kansas City Spirit,” showing a worker rolling up his sleeves while holding a blueprint. Joyce Hall prints it on 20,000 brochures distributed across the county.
(Fang: Bet they wished they would have used the River Market bluffs fill-dirt to build levees back in 1925)
1957--- Kansas City's transit system stops using streetcars.
1970--- (KCMO) Population reaches 507,330. (Fang: high point for population in the city; KCMO loses nearly 50,000 residents in the next decade).
No major meat packing facilities exist in the Kansas City region. (Fang: lots of people leave because of fresh meat shortages).
1977---Brush Creek ravages the Country Club Plaza after a savage thunderstorm dumps torrents of water on Kansas City on September 12th. 24 die and property owners suffer $94 million in damages.
1981---Two 120-foot-long walkways above the lobby in the Hyatt Regency Hotel tear loose from their suspension rods, dumping 65 tons of concrete, metal, glass and spectators onto hundreds of people below during a dance on July 17th. 111 persons die, including 18 pairs of husbands and wives. Of the 200 injured, 3 will die weeks or months later, pushing the death toll to 114.
1985---The Kansas City Royals win the World Series.
1988---Kansas City is listed as the 20th most segregated city in the U.S.
1989---The last occupant moves out of Union Station. The mammoth building will sit, deteriorating, for years.
1995---An expanded Kansas City Zoo opens to the public. It is now the 10th largest zoo in the nation.
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