Why is there a Kansas City in both Kansas and Missouri?

The question of why there’s a Kansas City in both Kansas and Missouri is one that many people have asked over the years. While it may be obvious to urban planners that this is due to geographic convenience, it’s not quite so straightforward when you’re trying to figure out how such a situation came about in the first place! To understand how two cities with the same name came into existence, we need to look back at their histories and explore some of their connections.

It turns out that both cities were named after the same place: a small trading post somewhere along the Missouri River that was founded in 1826.

The original “Kansas City” was actually just a little trading post in Missouri that grew into a big urban area on both sides of the state border; there are actually multiple definitions of what constitutes the city. The city proper includes everything within its boundaries, but some people also include nearby suburbs.

a little-known fact about Kansas City is that it was once the westernmost town in Missouri and the easternmost one in Kansas. This unique geographic location was created by none other than the Santa Fe Trail, which ran between Independence, Missouri and Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The Santa Fe Trail was a trade route used by Native Americans and early settlers to travel between the two towns until 1858 when they built the first permanent road between them. The trail itself had been in use since 1821 when traders began travelling into what would become Kansas City on horseback or mule-drawn carts to sell goods like buffalo robes and furs to Mexicans living via Santa Fe. At this point in history, there were no fences separating where Missouri ended and where Kansas began: if you looked at a map it just looked like one large piece of land with no divisions whatsoever!

This road would later become Route 40, an important part of the U.S. highway system.

Route 40 was originally built to connect Kansas City and Santa Fe, New Mexico. The road was part of the U.S. Highway System and later became known as Route 40. Though it’s no longer used as a cross-country route, it still exists in both Missouri and Kansas and is sometimes also called the National Road because its importance cannot be denied: This was one of the first major roads connecting east to west in America.

Kansas name origins

There’s a Kansas City in both Kansas and Missouri. The most common explanation is that the city was named after its founder, Dr William B. Cochran, who came to settle on the west bank of the Missouri River in 1831, a few years before Missouri became a state. But there are other stories that have been passed down through generations as well:

Some say it was named by officials at Fort Leavenworth because they thought it would be easier to spell than “Cochecton.”
Others believe it was named after an Indian chief or village.
There’s also an unsubstantiated theory that French fur traders were referring to themselves as “Kansas” when selling their goods in St Louis, so that’s where this particular K came from!

Conclusion

Remember, Kansas City is much more than just a city, it’s an idea. It’s the idea that you can find something bigger than yourself in the middle of nowhere. It’s the idea that small towns are made great by their people, not born great by their location. And it’s the idea that sometimes it takes three cities to make one metropolitan area.