The history of the ownership of the land on which Kansas City is situated is as follows: The land was in possession of the Indians, the original owners, when this territory was discovered by Coronado in 1542; first claimed as a part of the colony of Virginia in 1609; next by France in 1682; granted by France to the commercial domain of Crozat in 1712; granted to the Mississippi company in 1717; both surrendered to France in 1732; ceded by France to Spain in 1762; retroceded by Spain to France in 1800; sold by France to the United States and became a part of the Louisiana purchase in 1803; became a part of the district of Louisiana in 1804; a part of the territory governed by the governor and judges of Indiana Territory in 1804 and 1805; made a part of the territory of Louisiana in 1805; became a part of the territory of Missouri in 1812 and a part of the state of Missouri in 1821; the Indians' title to the land was extinguished in 1825 and the first permanent white settlement was in 1828; the first plat of the new town was filed in 1839, the name officially designated as the "Town of Kansas" in 1850, the "City of Kansas" in 1853, and "Kansas City" in 1889.

A row of business houses along the Levee, back of them a bluff with narrow streets cut through, and farther back homes that stood trembling on the verge of high hills; this was the picturesque Kansas City of the early '50s. From a narrow footing at the edge of the Missouri river, Kansas City has pushed back across the ridges. After half a century Kansas City has overcome the hills. In looking backward through the years to the dim horizon of fifty years ago, one can scarcely realize the wonderful transformation that has taken place, topographically, in Kansas City. It required wonderful perseverance and energy to make Kansas City sightly.

Obstacles in the shape of elevations or depressions were met at every turn, tons and tons of rock have been torn from the crest of the hills and used to fill up the valleys and ravines, and out of the chaos a beautiful city with magnificent thoroughfares, has arisen. The cliffs and valleys that were left undisturbed later were utilized to beautify the driveways and boulevards. In the beginning of Kansas City, business houses were built along the Levee, facing the river, with their backs leaning against the high bluffs. Few of the houses were more than two stories high. In 1856 the grading down of Main street began, and an Herculean task it was to cut through the cliffs.

The town with remarkable pluck and zeal rapidly pushed south and Grand avenue, Main, Delaware, Wyandotte streets and Broadway were cut through the hills, in some places eighty feet deep. Said Colonel Theodore S. Case:

"As late as 1870, the site of our town was ridiculed. The newspapers in the surrounding towns were all fighting Kansas City bitterly. It was a standing news item that several persons had been killed in Kansas City by falling off some of the bluffs in the main part of the city onto the tops of four-story buildings." But the old Kansas City has almost vanished and it is essential to have a chapter on 'Kansas City as it was' in order to help the older inhabitants to recall the changes and to make the present and future generations appreciate what immense labor was required and what great energy was necessary to develop the topography of the town.

In the early days of Kansas City no one realized the inestimable value of the strata of stone piled up, and no one considered the clearing of such irregular land until the crowded condition along the Levee created the necessity that gave the people the fortitude to grade a street through rockto make a "cut" from forty to fify feet deep. There was plenty of work for picks and shovels and in later years for powder to assist in blasting out huge rocks. At Eleventh street and Grand avenue, a high hill had to be cut down, while at Eleventh and Walnut a ravine had to be filled. "The changes made in the earth's surface show how determined Kansas City people were to have a city. Nothing could stop that sort of men. If a hill was in the way, they cut it down. If a ravine interfered, they threw the hill into it."

The grading of Main street and Market street, now Grand avenue, and the opening of Third street sent Shannon Bros.' store, the first exclusive dry goods house of the town-situated at the southeast corner of the Levee and Main street-and the office of The Journal, at the corner of Main street and Commercial alley, and the postoffice, from the river to the top of the bluff.

With the commercial growth of this new out-post of the western territory, the city council saw the necessity of making street improvements. The yellow banks of clay were insurmountable and not alone were clearings to be made but huge shelvings of rock had to be smoothed down. With each leveling of a new street "humps" of yellow clay, often seventy to eighty feet high, were left standing as monuments of what had to be accomplished in order to form a new thoroughfare. An examination of the old plat books of Kansas City gives very little impression of the present Kansas City. Only the few who have grown up with the city recognize the changes. The topography has been so changed that the old "City of Kansas" has vanished entirely.

On a hill on the west side of Main street, between Second and Third streets, a quaint little cottage with a front balcony was built in 1853 by Dr. T. B. Lester. When Dr. Lester returned from a business trip down the river late one evening, he was dumbfounded at finding his modest cottage nearly twenty feet above the street. The grading of Main street, though opposed by property owners who objected to the expense, was accomplished in Dr. Lester's absence. Dr. Lester immediately decided to build a story under the cottage. But more grading became imperative, as the large prairie schooners blocked the narrow passage. After further deliberation the city officials decided on another "cut down" of about fifteen or twenty feet and Dr. Lester built another lower story. He added a ground floor which was occupied later by a general merchandise store.

One of the most picturesque places in early Kansas City was the oldfashioned home of Judge T. A. Smart on a plot of ground bounded by Main street, Grand avenue, Eleventh and Twelfth streets. It stood in the midst of a beautiful blue-grass lawn, with shade trees and fruit trees. The house was sufficiently large to accommodate a large company of guests. The massive hillside on the west was covered with forest trees; the eastern slope was a steep, barren bluff. In those days there was but one road by which to reach the southern part of the town with any degree of comfort, and that was by way of Main street as far as Eleventh street or Twelfth street and thence by way of Grand avenue. The grounds of Judge Smart were crossed by a road which made a "cut off" and was generally used. Another fine estate was that of William Gillis, through which the Shawnee road, now the