Southwest High School - Sachem Yearbook (Kansas City, MO)

Page 11 text:

few years later, Westport Landing was planned on the Very banks ot the river. Those early years were years ot rapid growth, and Westport Landing soon became the Town ot Kansas. The seed ot a western empire was sown-and in fertile ground. Pl nation gone mad! Two thousand-perhaps three thousand miles across the prairie, gold had loeen discovered. That soft, useless, yellow metal seemed like a mighty magnet, slowly drawing the end- less caravans across the dreary wastes to tortune, per- haps,-or to poverty or death. Three towns marked the gateway to this treasure-- three towns welcomed doctor, lawyer, farmer, laborer,

Page 10 text:

Many years aao, a lone White rnan came out of the east, and built a cabin on the banlcs of the Blue River Where it joins the Missouri. There, for one year, Daniel Moraan Boone trapped and hunted Where today stand areat factories and Warehouses, all foraet- ful of Cheroliees or trappers. When Boone first savv Kansas City, it Was not an inspiring siaht. A succession of rocky bluffs, overlook- ina the Wide, muddy river, scattered herds of buffalo, rabbits, squirrels, and muskrats, and broad unturned fields were all the promise to be seen. However, on every side the vast potential resources appealed to that first trailblazer of the West. The stories he told when he returned to the east sent settlers out to find homes. lndependence and 'Westport were born aniona the foothills that border the Missouri, then, a

Page 12 text:

I 1 adventurer, all types of men, and sent them on as one--D friends of the trail, and seekers of wealth. Leavenworth, lndependence, and the 'Town of Kan- sas flourished as the key cities, and the Town of Kansas became the City of Kansas, aateway to the West. Calm lay on the vast western prairies once more. The madness of the gold rush had died, hut the trail opened in '49 was never to he closed aaain. The west had been discovered, trade had prospered for the City of Kansas, and the city had arown. l-fer scornful neiahhors of ten years aao n-ow saw the settlement on the bluffs stridina forward with the west, aradually overtaking and surpassing them. Cul- ture was comina to the City of Kansas, schools and