Kansas River - History

History

The first map showing the Kansas River is French cartographer Guillaume de L'Isle's "Carte de la Louisiane," which was drawn about 1718. On it the "Petite Riv des Cansez" flows into the Missouri River at about the 40th parallel. This map, with virtually no changes except for the translation of French into English, was subsequently published by John Senex, a London cartographer and engraver, in 1721.

Native Americans, of course, used the river for transportation long before any Europeans knew of its existence. Their canoes, and the pirogues of the French fur traders, had a negligible draft and easily navigated the river at any water level. From June 26 through 29, 1804, The Lewis and Clark Expedition camped at Kaw Point at the river's mouth. They complimented the scenery and noted the area would be a good location for a fort.

In August, 1819, Maj. Stephen H. Long steered the first steamer into the Kansas river with his 30-ton boat Western Engineer. He made it scarcely a mile up the river before turning back, citing mud bars from the recent floods.

The mouth of the Kansas River in the West Bottoms area of Kansas City (sitting at a longitude of 94 degrees 36 minutes West) was the basis for Missouri's western boundary from Iowa to Arkansas when it became a state in 1821. (Kansas entered the Union in 1861.) South of the Missouri River, that longitude still remains the boundary between Kansas and Missouri. North of the Missouri River, the state of Missouri extended its boundary further to the west in 1836 with the Platte Purchase. The river has moved slightly since this designation, but the state boundary has remained the same. This line is known as the Osage Boundary.

From the 1840s through the early 1870s, the southern ridgelines of the lower section of the Kansas River were the beginnings of the Oregon, California, and Santa Fe trails as they left Kansas City.

Beginning in 1854, steamboats operated regularly from Kansas City to Lawrence and Topeka, and sometimes as far as Fort Riley. This traffic continued through the territorial period and the early years of statehood, falling off rapidly about 1860. The last steamer to travel the Kansas was the Alexander Majors, which was chartered in 1866 to run between Kansas City and Lawrence until the railroad bridge at the mouth of the river, which had been destroyed by floods, could be rebuilt. This traffic into statehood gave the Kansas legal status as a navigable stream in the eyes of the Federal government. In the 1860s, the country's goods were increasingly transported by the extensive and comparatively efficient railroad system.

On February 25, 1864, the state legislature declared the Kansas River nonnavigable, allowing railroad and bridge companies to build bridges and dams without restriction. This law remained in effect until 1913, when, after it had been characterized as "a crime against the public welfare of Kansas", it was finally repealed and the river's status was restored to a navigable stream. The status has not since changed, though modern commercial navigation on the river is largely confined to dredging.