else around Convention hall, these check stands are made in sections and when not in use are packed away in a very small space.

The Convention hall is also arranged so as to accommodate large dramatic or musical organizations. It is equipped with a stage made in sections which is 110 feet wide and 60 feet deep. The proscenium, also made in sections, affords a curtain opening fifty feet in width. The stage is supplied with a modern system of lighting, including border lights and foot lights, all controlled from a movable switch board, to which flexible cables are attached. There is also a complete system of dimmers, in the immense gridiron above the stage are eighty sets of lines by which the scenery carried by any traveling organization can be worked properly. The dressing rooms have ample room for a company of three hundred persons. When the full stage is erected and the hall is arranged for an operatic or dramatic performance, the seating capacity is reduced to 6,000, but so perfect are the acoustic properties that it is possible to hear singers and speakers in all parts of the building while the absence of posts leaves an unobstructed view of the stage. The hall has been the scene of the triumphs of many individual artists, orchestras and bands; there Adelina Patti sang to an audience which completely filled the building and Paderewski played to his largest audience. Many men of national reputation have addressed great gatherings in Convention hall. One of the hall's most important uses is at the festivities of the Priests of Pallas, when the great society and public balls are given there.

In the great flood of 1903 the hall was opened as a place of refuge for those driven by the rising waters from their homes, and 1,500 people were temporarily fed and quartered under its roof. The building then served as headquarters of the relief committee during the entire summer, all food, clothing and household goods being distributed from it.

Convention hall cost nearly $400,000, with additional sums for the original cost of the ground and furniture and fixtures bringing the total value of the property to one-half million dollars. The property is owned by a corporation, the Kansas City Convention Hall company, the stock in the company being held by those who subscribed to the building fund. The par value of the stock is $1.00. There are about 8,000 stock holders, but this stock is not intended, nor is it held, as an investment. All the money that is earned by the building is put back into the necessary repairs or permanent improvements. The property is in charge of a board of thirteen directors, prominent business men who are elected annually by the stockholders and who serve without pay.

The seating capacity is a variable quantity, inasmuch as movable chairs are used on the arena floor and in some other parts of the house. As many as 15,000 people can be accommodated comfortably, while the capacity of the hall can be cut down to as low as 1,800 if required.

The construction of a new general hospital, completed in the summer of 1908, was an important municipal project. The general hospital is a charitable institution under the management of the city. It had its beginning in 1870 in a small frame building at Twenty-second street and McCoy avenue. In 1875 there were three frame structures with inferior accommodations for seventy-five patients. A brick building was erected in 1884 with provisions for forty additional patients. The city council appropriated $250,000 in 1895 for hospital improvements. A frame building used for smallpox patients was destroyed and a two-story brick building constructed on the site. The original brick hospital building was remodeled in 1897 at an expense of $7,000, and in the rear was erected a clinical amphitheater with seats for 150 students. The city spent $3,500 in 1899 in erecting a one-story brick building for patients suffering with tuberculosis and other infectious diseases, with accommodations for forty-five. The capacity of the old city hospital was 175, but frequently 200 or more patients were crowded into it.

These are the main facts about Kansas City's new general hospital, completed in 1908: The building cost approximately $425,000; the land on which it stands was given by Thomas H. Swope; the building is five stories high, built of gray brick, laid in white mortar. The structure is fireproof; the floors are hardwood, laid on concrete and the window sills marble. The corners on the floor are round; the hospital faces west on Robert Gillham road, where the thoroughfare broadens into a parkway. Twenty-third street is on the north side of the building, Twenty-fourth on the south, and McCoy avenue on the east. To the right of the main entrance is a bronze tablet with these words: "Because of his love for his fellowman, Thomas H. Swope gave to the people of Kansas City the site of these buildings." A bronze tablet on the left of the main entrance bears this inscription: "Built by the people of Kansas City-her officials, her physicians, her architects, her artisans each doing his part with loving thought of the good uses of these buildings."

The hospital building has ten "sun parlors" where convalescents may find relief from the melancholy "atmosphere" of the various wards. In these little parlors the patients come under the cheering influence of the sunshine and have a broader view of the outdoors. The patients who are able to walk are taken to these rooms in comfortable wheeled chairs with rubber tires.

Air is washed and dried before it enters the wards. The ventilating system is arranged so that it will not be necessary at any time to open a window; thus drafts will be avoided. The wards have a constant supply of pure air at the desired temperature. Two fans, sixteen feet in diameter. pump each minute 57,000 cubic feet of air into the building. The air enters the building through shafts in the walls of the second and third story. Passing through a long shaft, the air enters the "washer" where it is forced through a spray of water. By this process, it is cleansed of dust and germs. From the "washer" the air passes into the "dryer," a strong solution of lime. Hot coils absorb the water extracted. The air enters the wards through "registers," high on the walls, that are controlled automatically. In summer time the air will be cooled and in winter it will be heated. The building is heated by hot blast and steam, the degree of warmth being regulated by thermostats.

CHAPTER XXIV.

REVIVAL OF RIVER TRANSPORTATION.

As early as 1857, the wharfmaster's report showed that more than 700 boats landed at the port of Kansas City in one year. This was before the advent of the railroads. Steamboat traffic decreased in the Civil war, followed by a revival in the latter '60s. The Missouri river, affording the best means of transportation between St. Louis and Kansas City in the early days, carried an important commerce. The freight rates were high and the boats made money, notwithstanding a recklessness in the matter of expenditures.

In his history of the Missouri river, Phil. E. Chappel speaks of travel upon the river as follows: "The first navigator on the Missouri river was the little blue-winged teal; the next the Indian, with his canoe; then came the half-civilized French Canadian voyageur, with his pirogue, paddling upstream or cordelling around the swift points. At a later day came the furtrader, with his keel-boat; still later there came up from below the little "dingey"-the single-engine, one-boiler steamboat. At last the evolution was complete and there came the magnificent passenger steamer of the '50s, the floating palace of the palmy days of steamboating, combining in her construction every improvement that experience had suggested or the ingenuity of man had devised to increase the speed or add to the safety and comfort of the passenger."