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failure and was disastrous to all who invested their money in the enterprise. The road finally became a part of the Missouri Pacific system and was made a broad gauge line, it is now (1908) the Lexington division.

The Cameron branch of the Hannibal & St. Joseph railroad that reached Harlem August 22, 1867, is now the main line of the Burlington system and the branch is from Cameron to St. Joseph. The north Missouri railroad, now the Wabash railroad, was built from Moberly west and completed to Harlem, December 8, 1868. The Hannibal & St. Joseph; the North Missouri & Kansas City; and the St. Joseph & Council Bluffs railroads had their terminals at Harlem, from eight to ten months before the Missouri river bridge was completed. After the opening of the bridge, July 3, 1869, the three railroads crossed the river, and with the Kansas Pacific, the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Gulf; and the Leavenworth, Lawrence & Galveston railroads occupied the first Union depot in Kansas City.

In the spring of 1870, the Missouri Pacific railway built the incline that brought the trains through the "gooseneck," giving them an entrance to the Union depot, on the site of the present depot. This building afterwards burned, and the present depot was built.

The Union depot was completed and occupied April 7, 1878. The total cost, including the land, was $410,028. The depot company was organized under an act of the Missouri legislature passed in 1871. The bill was introduced by St. Louis people and gave authority for the old Union station in St. Louis, but its provisions were general and a company was organized in Kansas City, October 28, 1875, taking advantage of the law. The incorporators were George H. Nettleton, Wallace Pratt, C. H. Prescott, T. F. Oakes and B. S. Henning. The company secured some of its land by dedication, but most of it by condemnation proceedings in July, 1877. The Union depot was remodeled in 1880 at a cost of $224,083.

The Chicago & Alton railroad built west from Mexico, Mo., to Kansas City and completed its line May 11, 1879, to Kansas City. The Kansas City, Fort Scott & Gulf railroad built a line from Olathe to Springfield, via Clinton. Later the "Blair road," known as the Kansas City, Osceola & Springfield, was built. Both these lines were taken over by the Frisco system. Later the Kansas City, Wyandotte & Northwestern railroad was built and bought by the Missouri Pacific system.

In later years came the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific railroad from Chicago through Kansas City to Denver, El Paso and Fort Worth; the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railroad south to Denison, San Antonio and Galveston; the Frisco system to Tennessee, Oklahoma and Texas; the Kansas City Southern railroad to Texarkana, Shreveport and Port Arthur on the Gulf of Mexico; the Chicago, Great Western railroad to St. Paul, Minneapolis and Chicago;

the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul to Chicago and the great Northwest; the St. Joseph & Grand Island railroad to St. Joseph and Grand Island, Neb., The Quincy, Omaha & Kansas City, Kansas City to Quincy. The Kansas City, Mexico & Orient railroad, the short line to the Pacific ocean, was partly completed in 1908.

Some of the railroad officials who co-operated with Kansas City in the early days in making it a great railroad center were: Octave Chanute, George H. Nettleton, D. R. Garrison, Oliver Garrison, Thomas McKissock, T. F. Oakes, Sly T. Smith, C. W. Mead, L. W. Towne, C. F. Morse and Jay Gould. These were the early railroad builders of Kansas City and had the confidence of James T. Joy and the Adams family of Boston and other noted Eastern capitalists, who had faith in their works and furnished the money to carry out their plans.

CHAPTER XII.

REALTY IN KANSAS CITY.

The most prosperous cities, it is recognized, are those in which real estate transactions show greatest activity and in which values are on a solid basis. The early history of Kansas City real estate does not differ materially from that of other new western towns, and the only abnormal conditions that ever existed here were caused by the boom of 1886-87. At that time values were on a plane entirely out of relation to the business and population of the city, but all evil effects of that period gradually were wiped out in the slow period of liquidation extending to 1903. Outsiders who had lost money as a result of their ill-advised operations, were disposed for a time to distrust the real estate business in Kansas City. The home people, appreciating the evil effects of over-speculation, became very conservative, and as a result Kansas City real estate for several years was considered as worth what it would bring, just as it is in many old and settled communities. This sort of judgment was carried too far, and prices on inside business property and choice outside residence properties had a steady and slow growth. Up to about 1900, $2,000 a front foot was considered a high price for inside retail business property and $60 a foot an extravagant price for choice residence lots. This condition continued in spite of the tremendous prosperity in Kansas City's trade territory, resulting from the bumper crops of the period from 1896 to 1908. The holders of business property did not improve it, and rents became abnormally high considering the character of the buildings. To men who traveled and learned

things, it soon became evident that Kansas City values were ridiculously low as compared with those in other cities.

A demand sprung up for inside business property and one piece after another was sold at prices so far above what had been considered reasonable values that holders refused to sell, except at great advances. Purchases continued by outside investors until the residents were awakened, and the demand for inside business property became so great as to amount to a small boom in the spring and summer of 1907. It was in the fall of 1907 that the financial. disturbances of the East frightened the bankers of the country, and Kansas City suffered a bankers' panic. It was predicted that real estate values would suffer a heavy decline. These prophecies were not fulfilled because values then were only what they should have been to correspond with values in cities in less than one-half the size of Kansas City. No forced sales took place, and heavy sales were made in 1908 at prices that exceeded those of 1907. Kansas City, in 1908, was on a solid basis and the supply of money for loans on improved real estate was greater than the demand.

Many miles of streets had been paved with asphalt or converted into boulevards through the residence districts, and added to this, 25 million dollars had been paid out for the acquisition and improvement of the park system. These outlays naturally had a depressing effect on vacant lots, but after the bargains had been removed from the market, the residence property began to command prices more nearly representing the actual values.

Many fortunes have been made and a very few lost through operations in town lots and suburban tracts. It is difficult for a Kansas Cityan to talk or write about real estate without dragging in the hogs, the cattle, the bank clearings and the railroads, all of which are so numerous as to surge and swell, roll over and almost submerge everything else in ever increasing volume.

It may be demonstrated that there are more individual owners of real estate in Kansas City in proportion to population than in almost any other great city in the world. It also is true that there is a larger proportion of professional men, wage earners and those engaged in general business who actively operate in building and trading and general speculation in real estate than in almost any other city, excepting where a so-called "boom" is in progress. This condition accounts for the fact that more than twenty-five hundred persons are dependent for a living on the sale of real estate as agents or employees of agents. The basis for this universal interest is the underlying confidence that this town is actually "builded on a rock," metaphorically as well as geologically.

Kansas City real estate had its trials and ups and downs in the '70s and '80s from natural causes. As the surrounding country grew Kansas City increased in wealth. The disgust for inflated real estate values that caused the

panic of 1886-87 and the depression that culminated in the panic of 1893, caused the residents to become indifferent to nominal high prices on real estate that could not be realized. The building activity had become less and less until in 1892 it reached the lowest point in the thirty years period between 1878 and 1908. Prices were correspondingly low. Then began the real growth of Kansas City.

Streets were paved, sewers built and a park system begun. How were the residents to pay for these extensive improvements? What to do was soon determined. It was determined to issue the ever ready special tax bills running four to twenty years, interest and penalties 7 per cent to 15 per cent, thus giving property owners the option to pay spot cash or take time on the bills at ruinous rates of interest.

This plan was criticised and prophecies of bankruptcy were made, and with much justification. These prophecies were not fulfilled, however. Condemnations were commenced and the taxpayers actually were compelled to pay for the property taken, in cash before the city acquired it, or else pay heavy interest charges. If an owner permitted tax bills to be issued and afterward decided to sell, these tax bills must be paid by him out of the proceeds of sale. Property owners paid out 25 million dollars in this way which should have remained as working capital, and on which future owners could have carried the debt at an interest tax of 3% to 4 per cent a year. It is a wonder that this terrific cash drain had an effect on real estate prices? This is the explanation of the fact that up to 1906, real estate values were lower than in any other city of 100,000 population.

The real estate business began in Kansas City in 1838, when by order of the circuit court of Jackson county a tract of land containing 256 acres, belonging to the estate of Gabriel Prudhomme, was sold to a syndicate for $4,220. A portion of this land was plotted and a few of the lots were sold in 1839. Legal complications prevented further sales until 1848, when a reorganized company acquiring the property and, after extending the plat of 1839, had a sale of lots at which $8,265 was received. John C. McCoy platted the remainder of the Prudhomme tract in June, 1847, and twenty-three lots were sold July 17, 1847.

The town of Kansas was fully organized in June, 1850, and in April, 1853, a city organization was effected and thoughtful men began to see its great possibilities. The subdivision of new areas of land was Hubbard's addition, made November 29, 1855, at which time the number of inhabitants was about 500 and the valuation of property, $54,000. Additions then were made rapidly; three in 1856; seventeen in 1857; nine in 1858; and nine in 1859. In 1857, 527 houses were built and the population increased to 3,224 with an assessment of $1,200,000. There was a great combination sale of lots to

persons who would build, October 20, 1858. In 1859 the population had increased to 7,180, and the assessment to $3,311,730. The same causes that were then making Kansas City a trade center, operated to bring real estate into the market, the line of boats to St. Joseph, to which point the Hannibal & St. Joseph railroad had just been completed, being an important factor.

The West Hannibal Land company, of which William McCoy was president and Solomon Houck was secretary and treasurer, bought land in the West bottoms between the state line and the bluffs, and platted it, but few sales were made until after the Civil war. Near the close of the war, Case & Balis platted Pacific place, and L. K. Thacher the Depot addition. The price of lots at that time was $6 to $8 a front foot. Turner & Co.'s addition extended from St. Louis avenue to Fourteenth street, and from the Union depot to Pacific place. From its proximity to the Union depot, in 1868 it became the center of the' wholesale implement trade, and the price of lots advanced to $300 a front foot, but under the inflated values of 1887 they brought such fabulous prices as $1,000, while immediately opposite the Union depot the price was as high as $1,500. Some lots in the old town sold at about the same prices. Ashburn's addition lies between Ninth and Twelfth streets and Broadway and Baltimore avenues, and the lots there sold in 1865 at $12 to $28 a front foot, and advanced to from $600 to $1,600. The McGee addition lies between Main and Holmes streets and Twelfth and Twentieth streets; it brought $8 a front foot and advanced to $250 in 1887.

Appraisers appointed by the Jackson county court, in 1895-96, fixed the value of $195,000 upon sixty-seven feet of ground at the southeast corner of Twelfth and Main streets, belonging to the Mason estate. In 1869, a tract of six acres between Ninth and Twelfth streets, east of Tracy avenue was bought for $450 an acre, out of which lots were sold at $300 each in 1887. Dundee place consisted of ninety-eight acres lying between Twelfth and Eighteenth streets and Virginia and Campbell streets, and was bought by a Scotch company in 1881 for $415,000, or $4,235 per acre. It was platted and the lots sold at $25 to $40 a front foot, or at the rate of $6,250 to $10,000 per acre. East Dundee place, comprising an adjoining ten acres, in 1886, sold by the front foot at the rate of $16,500 an acre. In 1882 land between Ninth and Twelfth streets, and Prospect avenue and Olive street, sold for $1,400 an acre. Lots sold at first for $25 a front foot, advancing to $150 in 1887. Eighty acres east of Broadway and north of Twenty-first street, which sold in 1878 at $450 an acre, was bought at $10,325 an acre by a syndicate in 1886. Lots in the business centers sold in 1887 at $1,200 to $2,500 a front foot, and in the West bottoms at $600 to $750; some lots in Turner & Co.'s addition. sold for $1,000 a front foot.

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