Kansas City

Kansas City, city, seat (1866) of Wyandotte county, northeastern Kansas, U.S. It lies at the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri rivers and is contiguous with Kansas City, Missouri. When the Lewis and Clark expedition arrived at the river junction in 1806, it was the site of several Osage and Kansa Indian camps; in his journal William Clark described the spot as a desirable location for a fort or trading post.

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 Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) brought rapid development. The Kansas constitution, under which the territory entered the Union in 1861, was written in Wyandotte. In 1863 Wyandotte became the eastern terminus of the Union Pacific, Eastern Division (from 1868 to 1880 known as the Kansas Pacific), which was a portion of 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 stockyards and meatpacking plants had sprung up. Old Kansas City and Riverview (which became part of Wyandotte in 1880) developed during the 1870s. The settlement of Armstrong grew on a hill south of Wyandotte. North of the Kansas River an industrial district, Armourdale, named for a meatpacking plant, was laid out in 1880. South of the Kansas, Argentine grew up around the Santa Fe Railway 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, also south of the river and the 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. The entire metropolitan area is subject to episodic flooding; during the 20th century, floods in 1903, 1951, 1977, and 1993 inflicted severe damage on the city.

Much of the heavy industry of the Kansas City metropolitan area is within the city. 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), Central Baptist Theological Seminary, and the Kansas State School for the Visually Handicapped. Places of interest are the Agricultural Hall of Fame and National Center, the Shawnee Methodist Mission (1839), and the Wyandotte County Museum. Pop. (2010) 145,786; Kansas City (Missouri-Kansas) Metro Area, 2,035,334; (2020) 156,607; Kansas City (Missouri-Kansas) Metro Area, 2,192,035.