Sedalia to St Joseph, Missouri Great American Railroad Journeys

I have crossed the Atlantic

to ride the railroads of North America

with my reliable Appletons' Guide.

Published in the late-19th century,

Appletons' General Guide To North America

will direct me to all that's novel, beautiful, memorable

and striking in the United States.

INDISTINCT SHOUTING

As I journey across this vast continent,

I'll discover how pioneers and cowboys conquered the West...

GUNFIRE

..and how the railroads tied this nation together,

helping to create the global superstate of today.

In the boom decades immediately before my guidebook was published,

intrepid pioneers piled into the American West,

determined to build new lives in territory

that they regarded as vacant but was, in fact,

home to hundreds of thousands of Native American Indians.

As I continue to roll westwards across the United States,

travelling through Missouri,

it strikes me that these tracks follow the trails

that were first blazed with boot leather and wagon wheels.

I want to see what traces remain of the pioneer spirit

that drove people to cross the Great Plains

and to understand how the arrival of the iron horse

changed their lives for better or worse.

I began in St Louis, Missouri,

gateway to the West across the Mississippi.

Continuing westward, I'll take in Kansas City and Dodge City.

I'll discover a surprising British outpost in Colorado Springs

before turning south to Hispanic Albuquerque in New Mexico.

My journey will end at Arizona's extraordinary natural wonder...

the Grand Canyon.

On this leg, visit the railroad town of Sedalia, Missouri,

before heading to Independence, at the head of the Western Trail.

From there, I'll travel to Kansas City, the largest in Missouri,

and finish in St Joseph,

once the western-most station of the United States' rail network.

'Along the way, I'll confront the brutal hardships

'faced by early pioneers...'

400,000 people made that journey.

They claim at least 9% died along the way.

'..find out that, when it comes to American freight trains,

'size matters.'

And you've got 100 cars.

That's 2,000 yards. That is more than a mile!

We do have some long trains here, yes.

'..learn of the perils of the Pony Express...'

Wanted. Young, skinny, wiry fellows willing to risk death daily.

Orphans preferred.

'..and discover the truth

'about one of the most notorious outlaws of the Wild West.'

Jesse's not carrying a gun, Jesse's back's to us,

so we're just going to murder him in cold blood.

My next stop will be Sedalia, Missouri,

which, according to Appletons',

is "a busy manufacturing town and railroad centre.

"The principal street is 120 feet wide,

"finely shaded, and has many handsome buildings."

I'd like to investigate the shady side of this railroad town.

Founded in 1860, Sedalia retains its period character,

with wide streets and old buildings.

When my guidebook was published, this was an important railroad town,

full of engineering workshops and storage depots.

Railroad workers and passengers looked for entertainment

and Sedalia was proud to deliver.

Rhonda Chalfant is an historian.

Paint me a picture of this railroad town in the late-19th century.

Lots of businesses, lots of industry, lots of noise.

Something like 24 trains coming through each day.

And along West Main Street, lots of brothels.

-Brothels?!

-Yes.

In the upstairs rooms of what were legitimate businesses.

-Were these brothels legal?

-Of course not!

But the prostitutes contributed a great deal of money

to the town's economy.

They dressed nicely, most of them.

Some of them owned property and paid property taxes

and they appeared in court to pay their fine.

If they paid their fine, their house was not raided.

By the 1890s,

12 buildings in a single Main Street block housed brothels,

with others scattered throughout the town.

-Was that typical of small-town America?

-No.

One of the St Louis newspapers referred to Sedalia

as "the Sodom and Gomorrah of the Midwest".

Is that because there was a special kind of clientele in Sedalia?

Somewhat.

The number of transients - railroad workers, travelling salespeople,

that were in and out - did create some of the demand

but also, apparently, there were quite a number of men

who just sought the services of the ladies.

Rhonda has brought me to a place that she promises

will offer a glimpse into Sedalia's disreputable past.

Rhonda, what den of iniquity have you brought me to?

This is 217 West Main.

It is listed on the National Register Of Historic Places.

When it was listed in 1996,

it was the second brothel to be so recognised.

MICHAEL CHUCKLES Let's go inside.

-Michael, this way.

-Thank you.

'Jack Lewis now owns the building.'

Thank you.

This room was a place where the ladies met their clients,

-is that right?

-Yes.

I would say this was the social room.

They would play games, drink, might have had a piano in here.

You know, women sitting on their laps.

-And you've been stripping away the wallpaper, is that right?

-I have.

-And some people did it long before I did.

-And what have you discovered?

-All of this graffiti?

-Drawings, names, addresses...

Wow. And this will date back to when, do you think?

First date we found was 1874.

And what are the sort of things that they are writing on the wall

-that you can tell me about?

-Old ballads, old poems

from very risque to very colourful.

You know, it refers to the ladies, it refers to the era,

a lot of railroad stuff.

"Bertha, best in the house."

"Josie, the best-looker on Main Street."

Appreciative comments from clients,

railroad workers and others,

who never imagined that their graffiti

would become a matter of historical record.

So, Jack, if you wanted to know the written history of Sedalia,

-read the brothel walls.

-That would work.

Brothels offered more than one sort of entertainment.

Sedalia's red-light district

provided a venue for black musicians to perform.

The town became known as the cradle of a new musical genre...

Ragtime.

And its most famous composer was Scott Joplin.

-MAN:

-# Won't you come home, Bill Bailey?

# Won't you come home? #

What a lovely building!

Clearly a former railroad station

of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad.

And from the "KT" in the middle of those initials, known as Katy.

-MAN:

-# I know I've done you wrong

# Remember that raining evening

# I threw you out

# With nothing but a fine toothcomb

# Yes, I know that I'm to blame

# But ain't that a shame?

# Bill Bailey, won't you please come home?

# Bill Bailey, won't you please come home? #

HE PLAYS ON THE HARMONICA

MUSIC STOPS

Fantastic!

Oh, I enjoyed that! That gets rid of the blues, doesn't it?

So, is this ragtime?

-Yes.

-And what distinguishes ragtime?

-A combination of overlapping rhythms...

-Mm-hm.

..where a rhythm is given as much attention as the melody.

That's what signifies and characterises ragtime.

And was Scott Joplin really the pioneer of that?

-Pioneer of classic ragtime.

-Yeah.

I mean, the genius of Scott Joplin is he fused African American rhythms

with classical European composition.

You could say it was the first authentic

widespread popular American music. Indigenous.

RAGTIME PIANO

Born in Texas, a young Scott Joplin moved to Sedalia in the 1880s

and enrolled in the George R Smith College for Negroes to study music.

MUSIC: Maple Leaf Rag by Scott Joplin

His big break came when the owner of a music store in Sedalia

published his Maple Leaf Rag in 1899.

It sold half a million copies and set off the ragtime craze.

-Hey! You really tickle the ivories.

-Thank you!

-Doesn't she swing a mean finger? ALL:

-Yes!

Are you a Sedalia man?

I am. I've lived here for about eight years now.

-Where did you come from before that, then?

-I was born in Boston.

Is there much difference between Massachusetts and Sedalia, Missouri?

Huge difference. In Boston it is such a rat race.

Whereas here...you meet people, you know?

And I love it that you can meet somebody out on the street

and just have a conversation with people.

I'm using a 19th-century guidebook and, at the time,

Sedalia was known as "the Sodom and Gomorrah of Missouri", I think.

-Is it still Sodom and Gomorrah?

-It is not.

Today we have this swathe that we call the Bible Belt

and we're right in the middle of that.

Missouri is really a big part of that.

What does it really mean to be in the Bible Belt?

Generally speaking, it's middle-class America.

It's hard-working, average people.

And they believe in what God has for us.

It's about following a different way of life than our own, er...

natural tendencies.

And what practical difference does that make

to the way that people behave towards each other?

We love each other. It's all about love.

And does that love extend to people who aren't like you?

Black people, non-Christians, Muslims?

Oh, sure it does, yeah.

Love... Love transcends all, doesn't it?

I will have that thought in mind as I board my train.

Good! Thank you, Mike.

From Sedalia, my journey following in the footsteps of the pioneers

is taking me 84 miles westward

on Amtrak's Missouri River Runner service.

My next stop will be Independence, Missouri,

which Appletons' tells me is

"a neat and thriving town with much business activity".

I wonder what made its wheels go round

before the railroads called into town?

-Hello, ladies.

-Hi!

I spotted you, because you are being very jolly. What you are up to?

-Why are you having so much fun?

-We're on our mother-daughter trip.

-Ah, lovely.

-Yes.

-And where is your mother-daughter trip taking you?

-To Kansas City.

-Now, I'm doing a journey through history.

-Do you like history?

-I teach history, so...

-You teach it?

-I teach history.

Do you ever think about the old days?

I mean, before the railroads,

what about the wagons and the frontiersmen and the settlers?

I do. I mean, I just think it would be neat to go back in time

and see all of that, just be a part of it.

You'd wear a lot of clothes and you'd be dirty more frequently.

But I think it would be neat to find out.

And once again, ladies and gentlemen,

our next stop is Independence, home to Harry S Truman,

the 33rd President of the United States.

Independence, your stop. Please gather your belongings

and be ready to exit the train. Independence will be next.

That was a great ride. Thank you so much.

-You're welcome.

-Bye-bye, now.

This is the house of Harry S Truman.

He didn't have a college education,

he ran a haberdashery business here in Independence.

He became President of the United States.

Took the decision to drop the atom bomb on Japan.

And after the Second World War, with the Marshall plan,

rebuilt Japan and Germany as democracies.

A self-educated man from small-town America

reached the White House

and took decisions that have shaped the world.

That's the American dream.

Before railroads crossed the continent,

Independence, Missouri was the trailhead

for the gruelling and epic 2,000-mile trip west

to Oregon or California.

Pioneers would gather here before setting out into the great unknown.

I'm taking a ride with tour guide Ralph Goldsmith.

Ralph, what is the significance of Independence

in the story of the conquest of the West?

Well, Independence is where the trails began.

The main reason is that Independence was about as far west

as you could get on the Missouri River at that time.

So, for example, in the 1840s,

what sort of people were starting from Independence?

Would they be families or ambitious young men?

A little of both. A little of both.

They, er...

Horace Greeley said it, "Go west, young man, go west."

If you're ambitious, you know, there are opportunities out there.

They were giving land away free in Oregon.

All you had to do was get there.

Some people would sell everything they had to come here, you know,

to make a new nation here.

Between 1840 and 1860,

around half a million migrants made the journey west on the trails.

The most popular destination was Oregon.

But the discovery of gold in California in 1849

drew tens of thousands to seek their fortune.

-Did you need to have a bit of money to go out west?

-Oh, yeah.

You had to buy your oxen and mules and all your supplies.

But you have to understand, it was a wagon train industry here.

Think about it. A thousand wagons leaving town in one month in 1845.

Six animals per wagon.

That's 6,000 head of livestock left this area.

Times four.

24,000 mule shoes, ox shoes and horseshoes had to go on.

It was incredible. The commerce here was just off the wall.

Right here, where the courthouse is,

is where the Presbyterian and Methodist church

would have gatherings here and pray for the pioneers as they'd leave.

The Episcopal church down here

would actually anoint them, the animals, with holy water.

It was a pretty perilous undertaking.

It was a perilous taking. They were taking their lives in their hands.

Five-and-a-half months from this point, right here.

And they never averaged more than 9 to 15 miles per day.

Unbelievable.

They called it "seeing the elephant".

You know, you had this vision of what it's going to be like

but, when you get out on the prairie,

there's nothing but prairie grass for thousands of miles.

And you realise, "Holy Moley, what have I got myself into?"

Ralph, I want you to level with me. What are our chances of making it?

400,000 people made that journey.

They claim at least 9% died along the way.

-Died of what?

-Dysentery, snakebites,

wagon accidents, cholera.

They claim less than 300 of them

were actually killed by American Indians along the way.

But those people, their courage, their strength, their stamina,

they're the ones who made us a nation

from sea to shining sea.

We had a name for this dream.

We called it "manifest destiny".

Yah! Come on, get 'em up, now!

-Here, you take them for a while.

-OK.

Let's go west, young man!

All right!

I smell...gold!

At the end of the day,

wagon trains would be drawn into a circle to corral the livestock.

-What's for supper, Keith?

-Buffalo soup.

-Not again!

-Oh, yeah.

It's your favourite.

I tell you, Keith, it's good.

To many pioneers on the trail, my meal would have seemed like a feast.

Diaries reveal the hardships that they faced.

Virginia Reid Murphy, aged 13, 1846 -

"We could scarcely walk

"and the men had hardly enough strength to procure wood.

"We would drag ourselves through the snow.

"Poor little children were crying with hunger and mothers were crying

"because they had so little to give to their children.

"We now had nothing to eat... but raw hides."

Terrible.

'At the time of my Appletons' Guide,

'waves of migrants continued to push the American frontier westward,

'while others settled.

'15 miles south of Independence,

'I hope to find out what life was like for them

'from Jonathan Klusmeyer, who, along with 150 volunteers...'

Thank you. It's so nice to see you.

'..runs a living history museum called Missouri Town 1855.'

You know, there is such amazing tranquillity here.

I can't believe it. No sound of cars, no sounds of trains.

-It's a very special place, isn't it?

-Absolutely it is.

The town actually never existed.

We actually moved buildings in here

from different parts of western Missouri.

So these buildings have come from somewhere else,

-but they're perfect in their period detail?

-Yeah.

These folk, who came to Missouri,

they had not made the trek of 2,000 miles to Oregon or California

but, nonetheless, the conditions they found here were difficult.

They were difficult.

So they found rocky soil, they found tall trees,

they had to clear all of these roots out of the area

and really get the land ready to farm.

So where had they come from?

They were coming from all over the South, primarily.

Until actually you get into the 1850s,

when the Germans and Irish started coming over,

you're getting mainly just Virginians,

people from Tennessee and also Kentucky,

that are trying to escape the higher land prices in the East.

The Homestead Act of 1862

opened up settlement of the Western United States

by allowing any citizen over 21 to claim 160 acres of land.

Those who farmed it successfully for five years would then own it.

Others were drawn to follow, and settlements grew into towns.

Hello.

The number of such claims approved eventually exceeded 1.5 million.

-Hello, sir.

-Mr Bailey.

They tell me this is the very heart of the village.

Who are your clients? What are they coming here for?

Well, pretty much everybody has some business with me one way or another,

but most of the people, of course, are farmers.

So I put tyres on the wagon wheels, shoes for the horse, mule and ox.

And whatever their metal needs are, I pretty much take care of them.

Tell me a bit about how the town works.

I think of people here being self-reliant.

But, actually, I'm getting an impression

that it has to function as a community.

We're really more dependent on one another than you might imagine.

I don't farm, but I still like to eat.

So what I do is, oftentimes,

if people can't afford to pay me outright with cash, we do barter.

And that's, of course, a way of life with us.

Now, I interrupted you. You were making something.

Well, yes, sir. Got a little hook in the fire here.

You want to work it whilst it's still hot.

The old saying, you've got to strike while the iron's hot.

This is where it came from.

I'm making a little curlicue on the end of this.

We don't want this to snag momma's dress

while she's working in the kitchen.

And the next thing that's left

is just to put a twist in it to kind of finish it off.

Why don't you come on over here and try the bellows for a little bit?

-Takes a bit of effort, Mr Bailey.

-Yes, it does.

We're going to bring that out.

Put it with the hook up in the vice.

-Now, take the tongs and get a good grip on the shank itself.

-Yeah.

And in this state, it's easy enough to put a little twist in there.

There you go, sir.

A lovely S-hook with twists at either end,

ready for grandma's kitchen.

To encourage western migration,

the Homestead Act even made provision for women and freed slaves

to take over land and begin new lives in the prairies and beyond.

-Good morning, Linda.

-Hello.

-How are Dan and Murphy today?

-Very good, thank you.

They've been very busy ploughing, hauling grain.

And excuse me asking you, it is usual for a woman

to be in control of a couple of huge oxen?

It is not that common but, of course,

in the absence of her husband or any sons,

women of all ages and all generations rise to the occasion

and do what's required of them.

Honestly, what's it like for a woman in 1855 living out here in the West?

Well, it can be rather frightening. It can be very lonely.

But, of course, that makes it all the more enjoyable

when we get to go to church or if we have a quilting bee

-and get together with the other ladies.

-Hm...

Now, next time I get lonesome, I'll think about a quilting bee.

-Could be just the thing.

-It might be just the thing.

-Thank you, Linda.

-Thank you.

-Bye.

-Bye.

Railroad companies drove the settlement of the West.

In order to encourage new lines,

the government offered them generous land grants

on either side of their tracks.

They launched a settlement campaign,

offering transport and temporary accommodation,

while families built their own homes.

Communities quickly grew.

OLD-TIME COUNTRY MUSIC

Ma'am, what a privilege.

You are welcome, sir.

From Independence,

you can see the gleaming towers of Kansas City, Missouri,

ten miles away.

But most trains approaching the city today don't carry passengers.

They move America's freight.

Shellee Currier is from the South Kansas and Oklahoma Railroad.

Shellee, I get the impression that Kansas City

must be a very major hub for rail freight.

Where does it rank in the nation?

Yes, Kansas City is the second largest rail hub after Chicago.

But it's first with consideration of tonnage

that travels through the terminal.

As you're seeing above us,

this is considered a container train.

You could have a mix of unit train,

where it's one train carrying one product, such as coal.

Or you could have what's called a manifest train,

100 to 132 railcars,

and it's a mixture of, like, cement or sand or things of that type.

So let's say the average length of a car is 60 feet, 20 yards.

And you've got 100 cars, that's 2,000 yards.

That is more than a mile!

We do have some long trains here, yes.

I get the feeling in Kansas City

we're at the centre of the spider's web. Would that be right?

That is true. Each carrier that's in here,

their network looks a little bit different.

For the Kansas City Southern, for example,

this is their furthest north point,

and then they're travelling down into the Mexico area.

For the Canadian Pacific, this is their furthest west point.

The BN and the Union Pacific,

they have traffic that runs both east and west

and also some lines north and south, as well.

At the time of my guidebook, separate rail companies cooperated

to provide direct services for goods across the United States.

Today, the freight rail network extends to 140,000 miles

and plays a major role in transporting goods.

Shellee, what sort of freight would you be moving on these lines?

Predominantly, we're moving bulk paper

that would be used to manufacture moving boxes and paper plates.

Keith, your job, then, is to pick up goods like this, like paper,

-and take them into the centre of Kansas City.

-That's correct.

What will happen to them there?

They switch them between different railroads

and send them on their way out.

So you're the local service. You're picking up and delivering

-to the cross-continental railway?

-That's right. We're the local crew.

This locomotive, how big a train could this haul?

This train is only 2,000 horsepower, so it'll haul about 2,000 tonnes.

-2,000 tonnes? That's still a serious amount.

-Oh, yeah.

I'm halfway through the second leg of my journey

charting the expansion of the American West.

This morning, I'll continue into the bustling heart of Kansas City.

From there, I'll travel north to finish at what was once

the Western terminus of the United States' railway network,

Saint Joseph.

To my great excitement, I will soon, for the first time in my life,

set foot in Kansas City.

Appletons' tells me it's the second city of Missouri

in size and importance with a population of about 40,000,

situated on the south bank of the Missouri River.

12 important railroads converge here. 12!

Imagine what sort of station I'm going to find.

This magnificent station does not disappoint.

Come with me on my journey in time back to 1914, when it opened.

Three magnificent chandeliers weighing tonnes,

a destination board on which was listed every major city

in the United States, East and West and North and South,

a waiting hall that could accommodate 10,000 people.

Now deserted.

The crowds have gone to the airports.

Kansas City, founded as a port on the Missouri River,

was first settled by French fur traders in 1821.

The town once revelled in the nickname Paris of the Plains.

"If you want to see some sin," wrote journalist Edward R Murrow,

"forget Paris and go to Kansas City."

Away from a typically high-rise downtown,

I'm surrounded by historic reminders of a prosperous commercial past.

The 1891 edition of Appletons' says that

some of the largest packing houses are located in Kansas City,

such as Armour's and Fowler Brothers.

The packing business in 1888 was worth 50 million.

We are talking cattle.

This is the sort of place where they used to

heeeerd 'em up and moooove 'em out!

I'm meeting Bill Haw,

who runs the Kansas City Live Stock Exchange Building,

to find out how this city was built on beef.

Bill, I get the impression from my guidebook that Kansas City

became an enormous centre for the meat trade. How did it begin?

You know, it was an accident of geography

as much as anything else, I think.

The cattle tended to originate in Texas, Oklahoma and the south-west.

They were put on trains with the eventual goal of going to Chicago,

but they needed to stop so that the cattle could be fed and watered.

Now, at some point that kind of evolves into the idea of

getting the cattle off the train in order to be slaughtered

-to continue as carcasses. Is that right?

-That is right.

I think the population, of course, had begun to move west,

so there was more demand in the central United States.

And the advent of refrigerated cars enabled them to be able to

kill the cattle here and then distribute it farther west.

And we're standing in front of a wonderful building.

It was the largest livestock exchange ever built,

and it absolutely reflected the fact that this was

the economic epicentre for the entire region.

Today, the renovated building has found new life as a business centre.

But the heyday of the international meat trade is a distant memory.

Can you imagine what this looked like 50 and 100 years ago?

248 acres of pens, 12,000 men, most of them horseback,

five rail lines capable of unloading 70,000 cattle a day.

It was an incredible amount of activity.

And somehow, the railroads were interleaved

amongst all those livestock yards.

You know, there's a quote from an 1890s Kansas City Star

that might explain that best.

"Kansas City's advantage is the result of

"an unrivalled geographical location.

"Every foot of the territory to which Kansas City looks

"can have rails laid upon it at a reasonable cost.

"These rails will point to Kansas City as surely as

"all roads pointed to Rome."

The Live Stock Exchange Building held its last auction in 1991,

but the region is still a cattle centre.

Today the markets are located outside town.

I've come south of the city across the state line

to a livestock auction in Paola, Kansas.

This looks like cowboy central.

I have a feeling I may be the only one here dressed in pink and green.

-Hello, sir.

-Hello.

-Would you mind if I pull up a chair for a moment?

-Have a seat.

So, what brings you to the auction today? What are you selling?

-What kind of beasts have you got?

-Feeder cattle.

-What age are they?

-They're yearlings.

-Yearlings?

-Yeah, a year old.

So, what's your business?

You take very young animals and grow them up to yearlings?

Buy them weighing 300-400 lbs and make them weigh 700, 800.

What is it about cattle that attracts a man to the job?

For me, it might have started out the glamour of the Wild West,

-you know?

-Brilliant.

I grew up around horses and cattle, always rode a horse.

First thing you know, you're making a living at it.

-Bit of John Wayne in you.

-Yeah.

-Hello, sir!

-Hello.

-What brings you into town today?

Oh, I'm going to try to buy some cattle.

What are you looking for?

Mostly yearlings.

I buy for some people in Nebraska and some local farmers.

Are you in business in a big way?

I'm as probably as big a buyer as there is here today.

-Is that right?

-Yeah.

I mean, there's a few guys will buy more than me,

but I'll buy my fair share.

How many in number, possibly?

He's got 200 here today. I could possibly buy half of them.

-Really?

-Possibly.

I want to wish you all the best at the auction today.

-I have a feeling you'll get a good deal.

-Ha, thank you.

56...

HE SPEAKS RAPIDLY

57.

I'll have eight. And 58.

Half, nine.

59.

Half. Nine and a half.

59.

59, half.

25.

So, cattle 160, 427 straight up.

At this time, I'd like to introduce Michael Portillio, is that right?

-Close.

-Close. He's going to come up and take the microphone.

-May I borrow that hat?

-Yeah.

OK, we're ready. What are we starting at?

130 it is, 130...

HE IMITATES CATTLE AUCTIONEER

131.

'Hmm. I think I got away with that!'

35. 135!

135.

-Who is buying?

-Right there.

-Ah.

Buyer 120, buyer 120 at 135.

APPLAUSE

Thank you, guys.

I've heard that for Kansans,

smoke has the power to transform meat

from the mundane into the memorable.

I've been recommended a barbecue joint out at the airstrip.

Whoa, that is a lot of food!

What is this?

That's baby backs, and that's the bottom part of the spare ribs,

they cut it off. It has no fat on it, it's the most tender...

It's the cream of the crop when it comes to spare ribs.

Lovely. And how do you cook them?

We smoke it with applewood and cherrywood,

for about four hours.

Wow. For four hours?

It's our signature dish.

We were the rib champions of the year back in 2000,

before we opened up the restaurant.

And that's the way we smoked them in competitions.

-Can I try it in front of you?

-Yes, sir.

It's so soft. It comes clean off the bone.

It's got a great smoky flavour.

Oh, thank you.

I couldn't help noticing President Obama on the wall.

Did he have any ribs?

Well, he took a slab to go.

They're good.

The population of Kansas City skyrocketed during the 1870s

thanks to the cattle trade.

An expanding network of railroad tracks brought people from across

the nation and soon, transport within the city was also needed.

I'm on the KC Streetcar.

According to the 1891 edition of Appletons',

electric or cable cars traverse the city in every direction

and render all parts accessible for five cents.

Five cents!

Do you know what it costs now?

Zero.

It must be the only price to have gone down in 125 years.

Kansas City's cable and streetcar system

once stretched over 300 miles.

But the last service ran in 1957.

The streetcar returned in 2016 as part of a programme

to revitalise the city's downtown area.

It runs for two miles and extensions are being planned.

-Hello, ladies.

-Hello.

-Hi.

-Are you enjoying the KC Streetcar?

-Yes.

-We are.

Are you regulars on the KC Streetcar?

-No, we've never done it before.

-Oh, really?

-You're not from Kansas City, then.

-Yes.

-Yes, we are.

So, why are you riding it today for the first time?

-Girls' night out.

-Girls' night out.

-So, better than taking the car.

-Yes.

-Yes.

Because you might be having a little drink tonight, perhaps.

-Just a little.

-We already did.

Like much of America,

Kansas City owes the building of its early railroads to Irish navvies.

I've come to the West Bottoms district to meet Pat O'Neill

from the Irish History Society.

Classically, a wave of Irish immigration

came to the United States after the Hunger of 1848-49.

-Is that true of Kansas City?

-It was, absolutely, yes.

Because, you know, the Irish bottled up in the tenements and again

always on the East Coast and they were looking for places to escape.

And the catholic priest here in Kansas City actually put out

a notice in the late 1840s,

early 1850s for Irish to come to Kansas City to help them

expand the city by cutting the streets through these bluffs.

And so they naturally gravitated to better jobs on the railroad.

Kansas City's importance as a rail hub was secured in 1869

when Irishman Charles Kearney helped to persuade

the Hannibal and Saint Joseph Railroad to construct

the first permanent rail bridge

across the Missouri River and Kansas City.

By the 1870s, they're making cuts through these bluffs in every

direction so railroads can take off from Kansas City.

Where was the old union depot?

Well, the Union Station, you'll see that kind of empty area down there?

-Yeah.

-Well, that's where the Union Station was.

That's also what they called the wettest block in Missouri,

because it had some 40-some saloons within two blocks -

mostly Irish saloons, I might add -

and there was an area down in here that was shared by Irish immigrants

and blacks, and it was cold Hell's Half Acre because

it was the most prone to flooding.

When the water came up 10 or 12 feet,

it would send the cattle and the pigs in every direction.

It would turn train cars over on their sides, even off the bridges.

Despite those hardships, the Irish community quickly put down roots.

The first Irish business in America opened in Kansas City in 1887.

The shop and bar are now run by Kerry Browne,

great-granddaughter of the founder.

-Well, thank you, and cheers.

-Slainte.

-Slainte, indeed.

So, how did it all start?

My great grandparents came over from County Kerry, Ireland,

travelled by train and stopped here and thought, "This looks like home."

This is the store early on.

This is my dad, this cute little fellow here,

and you can still see how it looks the same.

Here's the papers of my grandfather when he came from Ellis Island.

James R Browne from Knocknagoshel, County Kerry, Ireland.

If you think of how young he was,

he was about 17 years old and left home.

This sheet is for steerage passengers.

-They came in the cheapest class.

-Yeah.

Think of that journey, think of what it must have been like.

I can't imagine.

You've done very well, your ancestors -

some of them did very well -

but do you feel sadness about those who left Ireland in the first place?

Yeah, it had to be awful.

When you think of leaving those people,

knowing you'd never see them again...

And there wasn't the connections like we have now

with internet or a phone - they said goodbye for good.

And they'd have wakes, the Irish wakes,

like a ceilidh at the crossroads,

and everybody in the town would gather and have music and dance

and send them off, knowing they'd never see them again.

# And it's no, nay, never... #

'Generations after the Irish arrived in Kansas City,

'memories of home and those left behind run deep.'

# And it's no, nay, never

# No, nay, never no more

# Will I play the wild rover

# No, never, no more. #

Go on ya!

North of Kansas City lies a town that once held the distinction

of being the most westerly point on the United States rail network.

A gateway to the untamed prairies,

it was also where an American legend was born and another died.

During the 1850s, railroads had been built over a tremendous distance

from the east coast into the heart of the American continent.

But 2,000 miles remained before they'd reach California.

I'm at Saint Joseph, Missouri, the westerly terminus

of the delightfully named Hannibal and Saint Joseph Railroad.

How to provide a connection to California

before new lines could be built?

Hannibal would doubtless have recommended elephants,

but the Americans chose ponies.

The Pony Express carried mail between Saint Joseph

and Sacramento, California.

From there, it would continue to San Francisco by ferry.

I'm meeting Suzanne King and her husband John to discover more

about this institution of the American West.

-Hello, Suzanne.

-Hi, Michael, how are you?

-Good to see you. Hello, John.

-Hello.

-And who is this?

-This is Renzy.

She is a Morgan horse and Morgans were one of the breeds of horses

that were used during the Pony Express.

Now, I see we're standing outside the 1860 Pony Express office.

-May we go inside?

-Absolutely.

The Pony Express made its headquarters

in the Patee House Hotel, now a museum.

It offered a last taste of luxury for guests heading into

the inhospitable western terrain.

Well, Suzanne, really, here we are touching history.

This is the original furniture of the Pony Express office.

But what was the concept of the Pony Express?

Well, the concept was to improve communication between

the Atlantic and the Pacific coast.

Saint Joseph was the furthest west that you'd get on a train,

however, communication for the rest of the country was slow.

And so, with the Pony Express,

the communication was condensed into ten days.

The idea was proposed by California Senator William Gwin

to freight magnate William Russell in 1859.

It was visionary and in harmony

with America's growing sense of manifest destiny,

that the nation was fated to span the continent

from sea to shining sea.

The first rider, Johnny Fry,

left Saint Joseph on April 3, 1860.

What sort of riders did they have to recruit?

Well, if you take a look at the advertisement...

"Wanted - young, skinny, wiry fellows not over 18.

"Must be expert riders willing to risk death daily.

"Orphans preferred."

And these intrepid riders, what sort of perils did they face?

Well, you did have Indian activity, you had the heavy winter snow,

the rains washing out the gullies, the trail,

and you had groundhogs, because a horse would run across that,

they could break a leg.

-The groundhog was at least as dangerous as the Indians.

-Yeah, yes.

Over 400 horses and 80 riders galloped between

a chain of stations that crossed hostile terrain.

Riders could be in the saddle for 100 miles at a time.

This sounds like a very expensive operation.

Well, they had 172 stations.

Each of those stations had to be staffed and stocked,

and you have all the costs of the horses and the feed and food.

And the letters at that point in time cost 5.

The high price deterred most people from using

the Pony Express for their mail.

The final nail in its coffin was the connection

of the cross-country telegraph,

which provided instantaneous and affordable communication.

That service opened on October 24, 1861,

and two days later, the Pony Express announced its closure.

Here's something that only lasted 19 months.

Why does this little incident live in our minds, in our history?

Because it accomplished what the whole country wanted it to do

at that point, which was communication.

And the skiddy, wiry fellow, the rider,

has joined the panoply of great American heroes.

Because on the Pony Express it cost 5 to send half an ounce

in ten days to California, most of the correspondence

was official, governmental, military and so on.

So I've decided to send my letter, get my money's worth,

to John Gately Downey, who was, of course, the governor of California.

The Pony Express is commemorated with an annual ten-day ride

from Saint Joseph to Sacramento.

John and Suzanne have taken part since the 1980s and their children,

Kristen and Richard, carry on the tradition.

Kristen, I've been to the Pony Express office and I've paid

-my 5 for half an ounce.

-Yes.

-Would you put that in your mochila, please?

-Of course.

Thank you very much.

Now, I believe that every young man who made this ride

had to take this oath.

-Would you like to raise your right hand, please?

-Yes.

And pronounce the oath.

I agree not to use profane language, not to get drunk,

not to gamble, not to treat animals cruelly

and not to do anything else that is incompatible

with the conduct of a gentleman.

Godspeed. May my letter reach its destination safely

-and may you be kept safe as well.

-Thank you.

In these parts,

they say of a man of pretensions, without substance -

big hat, no cattle.

I have no cattle, so what about a hat?

And when you think of a hat out west, one name stands out.

Stetson.

Mary Ellis has been working in the St Joseph store

for more than 30 years. Who better to bring out my inner cowboy?

Mary, if I were looking for a hat, where would I begin?

We have a lot of different hat shapes, colours.

We will walk along and put on different styles

that we think is going to match the shape of your face the best.

Because some people look good in a tall crown,

some people look good in a short crown.

I think you're going to be a short crown.

John B Stetson was born in New Jersey in 1830.

He moved west as a young man and, as legend had it,

he noticed the poor quality of the hats worn by pioneers.

On his return east in 1865,

he went into production with an improved design.

By the 1870s, he was a leading supplier of hats to the west.

Stetsons have been worn by cowboys and presidents alike.

So go ahead and try that now.

Push it down. We're pretty close.

You want it to have a little bit of a snap,

but I think that's going to give you a headache.

Does it feel to you like it's going to give you a headache?

-It felt a bit tight.

-This is more what the cowboys are wearing today.

It's got the square crown, so let's try this on.

Tap it down.

It's not for you.

-No?

-Can't do it. Too low a crown.

A man of unexpectedly high crown.

You're surprising me. You're really surprising me.

Oh, my, my, my.

No.

Depends on where you're going.

That isn't you.

Goodness.

I don't think that's bad.

I'll be darned. Much better.

I think that's it. I think we've found it.

Grey does it.

How does the cowboy make use of a hat like this?

Well, it blocks the sun off of their neck,

and I think that they think that

they're just cool when they wear a hat.

And what about all this stuff about giving water to your horse

or putting some feed in there or whatever?

I hate to rain on your parade, but that's not what we do.

There is a protection on it in the beginning

that's done from the factory, but don't water your horse.

Robin Hood, Bonnie and Clyde -

can it ever be right to treat the bandit as a hero?

For me, as a train lover, the question arises poignantly

in the case of that terror of the railroads, Mr Jesse James.

Jesse James was one of the most famous outlaws of the Wild West.

Trains, stagecoaches, banks -

little was safe from his larceny.

Hello, Ralph.

'Ralph Monaco is a Missouri historian and former member

"of the Missouri House of Representatives.

"He's an expert on the James gang."

Ralph, who was Jesse James?

Part of him is still a mystery to this day,

the mystique about him, but he was certainly a young man who was

raised in Clay County under a Southern mind-set by his mother.

They were slave owners themselves.

He is thrust into the Civil War as a guerrilla.

When the war ends, he tries to surrender,

he's shot through the lung, nearly dies.

And then, how did he pursue his criminal career?

It was really the gang led by his older brother Frank,

who was born in '42, Jesse was born in '47.

They went directly after the source

of what they thought were all their privations -

railroads and banks, owned by the union men, the Yankees, if you will.

And we're going to get our revenge,

and in the process we're going to get rich.

During the American Civil War, supporters in Missouri of

the Southern Confederacy were barred from voting

and holding public office.

Resentment grew and James' attacks on union targets made him

a hero for many.

Tell me about one of the gang's lurid railroad crimes.

I think the one we can certainly point to happened here in Missouri,

in Daviess County, is the Winston train robbery.

1881, the train is filled with many railroad employees, in fact.

Things didn't go well.

They stopped the train as a regular stop,

they surrounded the train, they robbed the train.

And what's the tragedy of it is that while the mystique of

the James gang is so interesting, you've got to remember that

the stonemason was killed,

the conductor was killed on the train.

Despite those murders,

the gang gained a reputation as Robin Hood-like figures.

Legend had it that they would steal money from the railroads

but would not rob the passengers.

The railroads were not going to let their trains be robbed again,

so they brought in the number one detective agency in the world,

Thomas Pinkerton, and they were going to get

Jesse James and Frank James.

-The noose just tightened and tightened.

-Yes, it did.

'After a cat-and-mouse game with the authorities,

'James moved his family to this Saint Joseph house in 1881.'

-What had brought Jesse James here?

-To hide out.

Jesse James had moved his family from Tennessee to Missouri,

city to city, town to town, on the run,

because there was a bounty on their head.

Governor Crittenden issued a 10,000 reward.

As they were living here in Saint Jo,

their name was the Howard family,

but they were also known as the Johnson family, the Woodson family.

James invited his most trusted accomplice, Charley Ford,

and his brother Robert to live with him.

But James was double-crossed.

Robert had done a deal with Missouri Governor Crittenden

for the reward on Jesse's head.

There was a hot Monday morning.

Jesse James was here in this very room,

and for whatever reason he decides to take his holsters off

and went to feather duster the picture on the wall.

And the Ford boys were over here and that was their golden opportunity.

Jesse's not carrying a gun, Jesse's back's to us,

so we're just going to murder him in cold blood.

GUNSHOT

Bob pulled the trigger, his wife came running into the room,

saw her husband laying on the ground,

blood coursing from his head.

Now, wait a minute, you're being quite sentimental about

a man who killed a lot of people. Why has he become some sort of hero?

There's multiple reasons,

but one simple answer is John Newman Edwards.

He was the owner of the Kansas City Times newspaper -

well-known publicist, well-known writer.

Anything Southern-minded from the war he supported,

and he considered Frank and Jesse as nothing less than

Knight Errants of the Round of the olden days.

And so when he was killed,

Edwards writes this editorial that just condemns the entire

state of Missouri because of the conspiracy with these bad guys.

And it violated the law of the West -

you don't shoot somebody in the back of the head

when their back is turned.

That dirty little coward who shot Mr Howard

has laid Jesse James in his grave.

And that ballad will never die.

# Jesse James was a lad that killed many a man

# He robbed the Glendale train

# But the dirty little coward

# That shot Mr Howard

# Has laid poor Jesse in his grave. #

While the railroads were wriggling their way from the Eastern Seaboard

towards the centre of the North American Continent,

the pioneers were struggling to keep death at bay.

From drownings, disease, snakebites and outlaws like Jesse James.

The American Civil War tore through Missouri and Kansas,

killing thousands and devastating the land.

In judging how the United States has matured and grown,

we need to remember that it had a turbulent adolescence.

'Next time,

'I pay homage at the cathedral of basketball...'

-Turn in two. Good job. There we go, good score!

-Yeah!

'..get my hands on a vintage hooter...'

HORN HONKS Wow, that was fun.

'..discover what life was like in the Wild West...'

He's got a gun!

'..and hear about the harrowing tragedy at Sand Creek.'

A quote comes to mind in all atrocities.

The only thing necessary for evil to succeed

is for good men to do nothing.