Biographical Sketches
OTHERS WHO CAME - STONE, MCGEE, CASE, LONG, GREENE, COATES AND CHANDLER
~~~~~
ROBERT S. STONE, who came in 1849, speaks of the "forbidding bluffs" and "behind them were a few farms, vast tracts of densely wooded country and rocky hills". He also said that "where the city market now stands was a good camping ground. In the middle was a clear, cold spring. This was the city's first water works, where water was sold for $.25 a barrel."
He recalled when a group of progressive councilmen wanted to extend the city limits. The customary conservatives cried, "They are radicals! Kansas City will never grow as far as Twelfth Street.""Ridiculous!" said MILTON MCGEE who owned an 80 acre farm at 12th and McGee Streets. "Mark my word, gentlemen, the time will come when Kansas City and my farm will meet".
~~~~~
When the steamer "Minnehaha" docked at the levee in May of 1857, it brought COLONEL THEODORE S. CASE, who held a medical diploma. He came "out west" to grow with the county. When he tramped down the gangplank, "the strangest assemblage of humanity that can be imagined was represented. Side by side the eastemers of good breeding stood by greasers who could not write their names, wearing lankets, leather breeches, and sombreros, tough customers," he said.
He found that the levee extended from the foot of Grand Avenue to Wyandotte Street, and along the whole length piles of fright were scattered, in some places, 12 feet high. "I cannot image a greater conglomeration of merchandise than was piled on the levee. There were stacks of smoked bacon, plows, cases of silk goods, new wagons, kegs of nails, barrels of whiskey and a piano."
Mr. Case began to practice medicine "on the hill" and published the first Kansas City Medical Review and other literary works before the civil war.
~~~~~
ADAM LONG, born in Germany, came to the levee landing in 1854 with his brother and started a confectionery, shortly afterwards, he and THOMAS GREENE formed a partnership to sell groceries, with JOHN LONG as clerk. In 1860, John Long became a third partner in the business. Before 1866, Thomas Greene withdrew and started a wholesale grocery of his own, known as Thomas Greene & Company. The Long brothers later assumed the capital relinquished by Greene and formed the Long Brothers Grocery Company, still in business in the West bottoms.
During the 1880's the brothers acquired large property interests in what is now the North end, building Long's Hall (the first public hall in the city), Long Brothers Building, and the Long Building. They built at 6th and Delaware, putting in the first hydraulic elevator. Also the first typewriter to appear in the city was used in their office. The Adam Long 3-story brick home with tower-capped mansard roof, built in 1871 at the northwest corner of 16th and Central streets, was razed in 1948.
~~~~~
KERSEY COATES and his wife, the former MISs SARAH WALTER CHANDLER, came to the frontier town in 1854 but were not impressed with the muddy mess. At that time a road was being dredged through the north bluffs, leaving houses precariously perched on weakened foundations.
On Main street where the Coateses first lived was what was known as Saloon Row, lined with flat buildings, boardwalks and hitching posts. Around the gambling houses near the Gillis house Hotel galloped Indians on their ponies.
In 1859, the Coateses moved to an elegant house on the west bluffs. This area later became known as Coates "Hill and Silk Stocking Ridge" until named "Quality Hill"; it extended from Broadway to the bluff and from 10th to 12th streets. Coates built his home at 10th and Penn Streets and built Voates House, the first "modern" hotel in Kansas City, on the southeast corner of 10th and Broadway. The hotel was started in 1860, but construction was interrupted by the civil war and the building was not completed until 1868.
This page was last updated August 2, 2006.