Late again today with the links. I promise to do better tomorrow.
- Tankers, tankers and more tankers. Here are some stories from across the land: Seattle Times, Seattle P-I, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Mobile Press-Register, Washington Post.
- We had a short item on this in Business Today, but here’s the full story from the New York Times about Wichita native David Koch donating $100 million to the New York State Theater.
- I know we’re only talking population within the city limits, but I find it interesting that Wichita is bigger than St. Louis. I don’t know why, but I do.
- Nationally, foreclosures jumped 53 percent in June.
- Sprint’s new iPhone competitor, the Samsung Instinct, is off to a good start with sales at Best Buy, the Kansas City Star reports.
2 Comments
The article about St. Louis doesn’t say in so many words but the actual center city of St. Louis has been ringed by suburbs and the Mississippi River/Illinois state line for years … so it COULD NOT grow in area. Still as the article goes on to mention the St. Louis metropolitan area is one of the larger in the U.S.
Kansas City, on the other hand, had the foresight back in the late 1950’s or early 1960’s to annex a great amount of open land north of the Missouri River and, also, some land that ringed around the south side of Raytown back up to I-70. This gave K.C. the site for Kansas City International Airport some 20 miles north of downtown K.C.
In regard to Kansas City, Missouri, there are several interesting plans that never came to fruition. Back in the 1890’s or so, an idea was floated of changing the Kansas/Missouri state line to follow the old thread of Turkey Creek. This line would have wrapped around the south side of downtown Kansas City, Missouri, from the Union Station north, to give KANSAS a large urban center which it did not then have.
Another interesting plan was suggested by Frank Carswell, Boss Tom Pendergast’s old concrete man, and later wealthy contractor. Frank was the pavement contractor on KCI airport. He proposed to build an underground rapid transit system from KCI through the thick and fairly shallow limestone strata to downtown K.C. Frank always said the mined limestone would have paid for the project.
Another thought which might have worked was to purchase Richards-Gebaur (sp?) Air Force base back from the federal government in the early 1960’s to use for the new Kansas City International Airport. That might have changed history somewhat because much of K.C’s growth has been to the south and southeast and southwest in Johnson County. That location might have offered a modern rapid transit route through the densely populated portions of K.C. and on southwestward to Wichita.
Unfortunately, the U.S. Air Force wasn’t quite ready to give up its air force base.
Both Wichita and Kansas City metro areas back in the early years of the 20th century had a wheel and spoke system of trolley car lines going out as far as Hutchinson, Newton and Wellington here. But as automobiles came along and populations moved outward, the trolley lines were finally closed by about 1940 so the rails could be used in the WWII effort.
In this time of economic downturn and tightening personal budgets its so refreshing to hear of someone with more money than God throwing it around to see how many buildings on which he can get his name.