Mural Index

The name "Town of Kansas" was what old Kansas City was called before it became a city. Starting out as a trading post at a natural landing on the Missouri River, the town slowly grew east. With the California gold rush of 1849 and the migration of settlers to Oregon, the little trading post boomed into a bustling town.

This mural combines the early elements that not only made the town successful, but also set the tone for what Kansas City would become in later years, namely a lively western city with all the legend of western myth .

On the left side of the mural, above the muck and mud, is a well-dressed woman suggestive of not only the wealth in the settlement or the upper class of business, but of the saloon life as well. Below her are the traders, the frontiersman, the Mexican, signifying the Santa Fe trade, and the Indians. The Spanish settlers came up from Santa Fe to trade wool for textiles and fineries from the East. There were many Indian tribes, which came to trade skins and beads. Behind the traders we have the drifter type or fortune hunter. In the background are the carved-out cliffs that existed east of the Westport landing. These bluffs were excavated by hand. Hills
were removed by pick and shovel and deposited into valleys.

It was the railroad that really made the town take root and soon was more populated than the rival trading town to the north, St. Joseph, Mo. The mural moves in time as the images change, ending with the longhorn cattle drives that came up from Texas to catch the trains going east. In the distance is the river with a steamboat churning up the current. In all, this mural creates a collage of images spanning perhaps 50 years or more that are true to the history and development of early Kansas City

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