but it did not fall. No serious damage was done to the occupants. It would not be expected that Kansas City people of today would select the torrid temperature of the evening of "The Fourth" as a time for holding a Grand ball. Banta's Band furnished the music.

Many of the old-time dances of the town were given on board steamboats lying at the levee here on dark nights on the St. Louisward trip of the boats when prudence necessitated that the pilots attempt not to run down stream in the dark. The boat carried its own orchestra-colored musicians. Among the steamers were the Morning Star, Polar Star, Kate Howard, Ben Lewis, Twilight, Tropic, Sovereign, D. A. January, Hesperion, Silver Heels, Meteor, Monongehela, A. B. Chambers and J. H. Lucas-palatial passenger boats. Hospitality reigned, no admission fee being charged. Some of the old-time steamboat captains who were hosts at these festive occasions participated in by Kansas Cityans of long ago were: Thomas H. Brierly, John Shaw, Joseph Kinney, John La Barge, Joseph La Barge, Patrick Yore, Charles X. Baker, Sr., Benjamin Glime, William Edds, Alexander Gillham, William Baker and P. M. Chouteau and Andrew Wineland.

Col. R. T. Van Horn and Mrs. Van Horn came to Kansas City about 1850. They lived at first on the levee and afterwards in a brick cottage between Eleventh and Twelfth streets on Walnut street. Col. Van Horn became one of the moving spirits of the young town, and advocated, through the Western Journal of Commerce of which he was the editor and part owner, many measures of advantage to the people. Although Col. and Mrs. VanHorn are now past eighty years of age, their interest in civic affairs has never flagged.

Kansas City has much to be proud of in its present citizenship and its past citizenship. No scandals of public or private nature blot its escutcheon, and a clean record is presented to the future citizenship.

In 1804 Lewis and Clark recognized in this point a natural trading post. Major William Gilpin and Senator Benton made prophecies about the future greatness of the little town that were laughed at in 1850, but have now come true. The prophecy of to-day is that Kansas City will become one of the great cities of the United States, but she is already that, she is one of the cities of the world.

Many of the little old warehouses on the levee built about 1840 are still standing. They speak of the past more eloquently than can tongue or pen, for along that levee the greatness of Kansas City commenced. The people from everywhere, going everywhere, although they traveled slowly, carried with them the story of the energy, ability and pluck of Kansas City men and the charm and refinement of Kansas City women. Kansas City has become a "Good Place to Live In," and will be a better one.

As the town advanced old church societies were superseded by social organizations. The Craig Rifles, named for Capt. H. H. Craig, was organized in 1877. The officers were J. N. Dubois, Captain; E. V. Wilkes, 1st Lieut.; John Conover, 2d Lieut.; and John A. Duncan, 3d Lieut. W. B. Thayer organized the band. Chester A. Snider was drum-major and Dr. M. A. Bogie was surgeon. All of the young dandies of the town belonged to the Craig Rifles and their annual January ball was given in the Merchants' Exchange hall at Fifth and Delaware streets. The company was disbanded in 1884, with John A. Duncan, captain. The non-commissioned officers of the original company were: Sergeants, William Peak, W. H. Winants, T. A. Wright, H. B. Ezekiel, E. W. Smith; color sergeant, T. B. Bullene; corporals, E. G. Moore, Watson J. Ferry, W. H. Craddock, A. H. Mann, R. T. VanHorn, W. J. Connelly, H. S. Ranson, W. C. Jameson. Among the lists of privates were: Gen. Milton Moore, Gardiner Lathrop, E. L. Scarritt, D. P. Thomson, T. B. Bullene, Arthur Cowan, B. C. Christopher, W. N. McDearmon, Alex. McKenzie, C. C. Ripley, E. E. Richardson, A. A. Whipple.

The Priests of Pallas ball and the Charity ball, given by the young ladies of the Mattie Rhodes Day Nursery, of which Miss Mary G. Karnes is the leading spirit, are interesting annual events of to-day at which the representative business men with their wives and the leading society women with their husbands, lend their presence.

Country life has again become fashionable and many families of the city whose ancestors lived on the surrounding farms in the pioneer days, have gone back to their ancestral lands that lie mainly west of the Blue river and south of Westport, and magnificent country homes have been built. Several country clubs in the south part of town mark a phase of modern social life where "Liberty" and "Freedom of Speech" have taken on a new ineaning, the antithesis of that which stirred the breasts of men and women under the old regime. The social life of Kansas City has not crystallized into a society like that to be found in the cities of older states as in Baltimore and Richmond, and Charlestown which has a flavor, with established precedent and custom instituted by the colonial dames that entertained General Washington and General LaFayette. There is as yet no recognized leader here, no Beau Brummels nor reigning belles to issue social edicts that receive any cognizance.

The history of Kansas City, socially and commercially, embraces that of Independence, now a suburb of Kansas City, and of Westport, now a corporate part of the city. Independence and Westport were socially more important, but with the commercial development, many families from both places moved to Kansas City, which established a cordial relationship; and the society of the three places has long been as the society of one town. A

party at Mrs. S. H. Woodson's at Independence drew the Harris girls, Price Kellar and the Simpson boys from Westport, and the McCoy girls from Kansas City; or a party at the old Gillis House on the levee found all the eligible young men of Jackson county and the prettiest girls from Jackson and Clay counties as well. The "bonnet meeting" at Liberty, Clay county, held at Easter time was an annual event that called out the Leghorn bonnets for miles up and down both sides of the Missouri river.

The camp meetings at Shawnee Mission, three miles south of Westport, were annual Methodist events of such importance that entire families attended. Shawnee Mission was the first mission to the Indians established by the government. It was a manual training school and was presided over by Rev. Thomas Johnson. Mrs. Johnson was greatly beloved by the Shawnee Indians, and at the birth of each of her children the chief men of the Shawnee tribe conducted a ceremonial about the cradle of the child, naming it and adopting it into their tribe. The kindly relationship between the Johnson family and the Indians, lasts to this day. Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Berenice Chouteau, one riding an ox and the other an Indian pony, often visited the sick Indians in their villages and comforted and ministered to them.

Kansas City is then a part of all that it has seen; the influences that developed it were as various as the intermingling colors of a kaleidoscope. Situated on the border line between civilization and the great unorganized territory, the Indian country, it became, from 1830 to 1850, the chief trading and outfitting point for that vast army of trappers, traders, adventurers and pioneers that paved the way for advancing civilization. The Indian reservations of the Wyandotte, Delaware, Fox, Sack, Shawnee, and other Indian tribes, were just across the state line to the west, and government payments of about $4,000,000 were annually distributed and as promptly spent in this vicinity. Such close contact with the Indian character did not fail to leave its impress upon its people.

The Santa Fe trade, having been drawn from Franklin and Independence, gave the citizens and merchants, through the long trips of the caravans with merchandise to a foreign country, a broadened horizon and cosmopolitan views. Then came the Oregon trailers, with the converging numbers from the East, passing through the gateway of Kansas City and on to Oregon and Washington territories. They left their impression and influence here.

In 1837, General Richard Gentry raised a regiment of Missouri volunteers for the Florida war, and one company with Capt. James Childs in command was raised in Jackson county. This was the first Missouri regiment

to leave the borders of the state in the service of the United States government. They distinguished themselves at the decisive battle of Okechobee where their brave commander was killed and Capt. James Childs was seriously wounded. The stories and experiences of these returning Jackson county patriots from the Florida war, were not without their influence.

In 1847, General Doniphan raised the second regiment of the Missouri volunteers to go out of the state borders, for the Mexican war. So long was his march and so victorious his exploits, that he has been called the Xenophon of Missouri. And his companies, raised in the vicinity of Kansas City, on returning home, elated with their victories and broadened by what they had seen, stamped their influence on the city.

In 1849, the gold fever was raging and that vast herd of gold seekers, known as the "Forty-niners," passed through Kansas City, the Gate-way to the Golden West. Then came the "Pike's Peak-ers," the pioneer land seekers, the Texas cattlemen and the large western ranchmen who made their headquarters here for a number of years. Their influence on Kansas City developed it and it has now become the greatest stock market in the world.

The greatest cities of the world have been seaports on account of maritime trade, but Kansas City, singularly situated in the center of the United States and so long on the border of organized government, was from its earliest days the West Port through which the East outflowed into that Terra Incognita beyond. As "bread cast upon the waters," all that flowed out, flowed back after many days or months or years. The French and Indian trappers, Spanish and Mexican traders, Oregon homesteaders and the "Fortyniners," and Texas cattlemen, all knew subconsciously that this place was destined to become the Great Central Market of the continent. Kansas City, too, has had its share of war,-the Mormon war; the fearful Border war, the beginning of the terrible conflict between freedom and slavery, Union and Secession, and the Civil war.

The arrival of the Pacific railroad and the building of the Hannibal bridge, due mainly to the efforts of Col. Kersey Coates and Col. R. T. VanHorn, helped to arouse new and common interest and weld together the sundered community after the close of the Civil war. Then came the building of the Trans-continental railroads which Senator Benton had so long been advocating and which resulted in diverting the public attention from the maritime cities to the building up and developing of the great internal resources of the continent. With the coming of the railroads there came the decline in our great river commerce. Public attention, after forty years of disuse is again returning to the necessity of the improvement of the great rivers of the country, and the last action of the government deep water ways commission assures us that Kansas City will ere long see many steamboats

at the old levee again,-and the youth of tomorrow as of yesterday may enjoy dancing on steamer decks on the Rhine of America.

The Kansas City Spirit, evolved from so many sources and influences, is something that every stranger feels in the air. Some day a monument must be erected to it that will typify the soul of this West Port, this maritime city on the border of the great prairies so long navigated only by the Prairie schooners, this Gate City at the geographical heart of the continent. A monument to the Kansas City Spirit will be a monument to the city's Past, Present and Future, the place which has become the City Beautiful toward which all Pilgrims in search of Happiness and Content, progress.

With the same civil spirit and pride that characterized the Florentines and Venetians and which developed Florence and Venice into great and powerful centers for art, science and politics, Kansas City will attain her highest usefulness and will be recognized as one of the cities of the world. ELIZABETH BUTLER GENTRY.

CHAPTER XXX.

KANSAS CITY IN PROPHECY.

Attempts to lift the veil and reveal the future are not peculiar to any age or nation. Ideas of prophecies are formed from the sacred writings and incline one to believe only in their authenticity; however in profane history may be found many utterances of prophetic lore and it awakens a keen interest to find in the annals of history prophecies undoubted in their fulfillment. The prophetic spirit is the poetry of life; a play of the imagination; again a logical deduction of a keen insight; again it is the basis of the desire itself, the region of our hopes and presentiments extends far beyond the limit of what we can know with certainty.

Nearly nineteen hundred years ago, Seneca, the celebrated Roman Stoic philosopher, predicted the discovery of America in a few poetic phrases. He said, "Ages will come in the fullness of years in which the ocean shall loose the chains of things and a mighty land shall lie open, and Typhoneus shall lay bare new realms; nor will there be an Ultima Thule."

Forecasts of wars with their results have been made most frequently, no doubt the insight of men of fine perceptions. The most notable was the utterance regarding the war for Independence and the declaration of freedom for the colonists, made by William Livingston, the famous "war governor" and the first governor of New Jersey, in 1776. Seven years before