Westport Landing

To begin today's adventure, I took the Jefferson Highway in Clay County, Missouri

Jefferson Highway from November 2014...

http://svobodakc.blogspot.com/2014/11/you-are-traveling-on-jefferson-highway.html

Parked in the Bus parking to get my bearings.  Had to be reminded to move... ooops!

In pursuit of Westport Landing. Westport Landing is the river port Constructed here by the Westport Merchants where goods being shipped West were offloaded to send down the road to Westport. The Westport merchants decided to create a landing to bypass a lot of the overland travel. This landing Cut much time off of travel west. People would take the riverboats to the landing and offload. They would travel down what became Main Street to Westport Missouri. Kansas City did not exist at the time. The Westport merchants decided to platt the area around Westport landing as the city of Kansas. This was in the days of the Santa Fe Trail. I am basing my expiration on the maps that I have of the Santa Fe trails which have been plotted out over many many years. A lot of people have made the effort to preserve this history so that we could follow it. We must give credit to these people and continue their work.

I am beginning our track in this 90+ degree heat over at the City of Kansas walkway which is dedicated to Westport Landing, which eventually became known as Kansas City. A lot of people in these new lofts down here use this area as an exercise point. Although, I would not recommend doing this late at night as there are many people wandering around here who probably don't have the best of intentions. The area in question that I will explore is called riverfront west. It is part of the Riverfront Park. Also I will be able to get a pretty good look at the ASB or Armour-Swift-Burlington bridge which was constructed in 1911 and after 1916 carried the Jefferson Highway across the river. Before this auto and footbridge, the only way to get across the river here in Kansas City was by Rail or by ferry. There was a ferry that cross at the Missouri River at Harlem. This fery connected Kansas City to the old Pike Road which travel north into Clay County. There was very few options for people and I'm sure that at the time many people considered them to be very expensive. So in the early part of the 20th century when a bridge was finally constructed I'm sure many people didn't mind the toll that they had to pay.

I found myself a parking place on Main and second. There's a lot of preservation and reconstruction going on in this area. This is now an area that is filled with young people and lofts. This area has been neglected for a long time. A lot of history went under the wrecking ball up until now. The city pretty much turned it's back on the river from about the 1940s onward. This area was once known as skid Row and was full of people who were down on their luck or who had a drug and alcohol problem. In the 1970s there was a revitalization a part of this area it was called the River Quay. However a mafia war ended that or so the history books tell us. I am going to the area where the riverboats used to offload people and merchandise to head south to wards Westport to be outfitted for the trip towards Santa Fe. The Santa Fe Trail became the basis for an auto trail rooad that was created here in Kansas City in April 1912. This auto trail route ran from Times Square in New York all the way to the Pacific ocean in Los Angeles California. It was called the National Old Trails Road (NOTR) because it followed a lot of historic old routes through the United States. In Kansas City it followed to Santa Fe Trail Southwest to Santa Fe and then from there it went to Harris New Mexico Arizona and California. After Santa Fe the national old trails around became the basis for route 66 in 1927. Here in this neighborhood at the ASB (Armour - Swift - Burlington) bridge we have the intersection of the NOTR and the Jefferson Highway. Jefferson highway ran from Winnipeg to New Orleans Louisiana. In southwestern Missouri starting at Carthage and ending in Vinita Oklahoma the Jefferson Highway also became the basis for route 66. In Kansas City there are several points where the Jefferson highway and the National Old Trails Rd., Road intersect. One is Broadway and Southwest Boulevard. Another is Paseo and Truman Road. And there is a third which is grand and 10th. Street downtown. In 1926 the president of the national old trails road association was harry Truman. He served as president of the association for many years.

The view as you enter the park from 2nd and Main, KCMO.

Entrance to the Town of Kansas Bridge

Loft dwellings replace derelict wharehouses

Town of Kansas Pedestrian Bridge

Hannibal and Broadway Bridges, KCMO

ASB and Heart of America Bridges over the Missouri River, KCMO

Kansas City began here, as a natural wharf for river boat traffic

Where Kansas City began.  In the background is the Armour - Swift - Burlington or ASB Bridge, completed in 1911.

Record flood levels...

Town of Kansas Pedestrian bridge

Westport, Missouri

Where Kansas City began

A bar named after one of the main merchants of Westport

The old Boone store has been here since 1850

Site of McCoy's establishment...

Westport Road is the Santa Fe trail, where goods were shipped overland back and forth to Santa Fe, which when Westport was founded, was part of Mexico.

Westport has been a night time entertainment and shopping district since the 1960's.

I love the shape of this building.  This is the site of the former Penny Lane Record store.

Westport has many old buildings.

Site of the 3 trails and the Civil War Battle of Westport (October 1864), where the pro slave confederate forces were finally driven from Missouri once and for all.  The Battle of Westport was called the "Gettysburg of the West."

Westport was once a separate city, until the town that Westport founded, Kansas City, finally outgrew Westport and swallowed it.

Let us not forget a late coffee, or should that be called a Latte?