Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 1.djvu/128

102 returning in the fall with full loads of Mexican wool, hides, and silver bullion. The site of Kansas City was formed by high and steep bluffs between which the streets extended. More unfavorable ground for the development of a town, not to speak of a city, could hardly be imagined; and if anybody had then tried to make me believe that within thirty years a city of 130,000 people would rise upon it, I should have considered him a ridiculous phantast. Yet this actually came to pass.

From Kansas City to Leavenworth the right bank of the river became more animated. Every few miles an embryo town appeared, beginning with Wyandotte at the mouth of the Kansas River and followed by Sumner, Doniphan, and several others whose names I do not remember. Most of them had but a brief, mushroom growth. Leavenworth presented a surprisingly imposing sight. A dozen steamboats were at the landing discharging and receiving passengers and goods, and making a scene of bustling activity. Above the levee, on a gradually ascending plateau, rose the town amphitheatrically. Though but five years old, its resident population was already between six and seven thousand, with a floating one of several thousand more. The main business street was solidly built up with brick and frame structures. The private residences spread out widely over the beautiful parklike rolling prairie with scattered natural groves of trees. The town was swarming with new-comers, and I found it hard to get lodgings anywhere. Over a thousand would-be “Pike's-Peakers” had already arrived, and hundreds were added daily to the number. All seemed as busy as they could be, and I had never seen so much activity in a place of the same size. Leavenworth seemed bound to become an important commercial centre, and the pretensions of Kansas City as a rival looked as absurd to me as they did to the denizens of Leavenworth. Yet Leavenworth soon stagnated, and even to-day hardly exceeds 20,000 in population.