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Atchison, the Railroad Centre of Kansas. Its Advantages for Commerce and Manufactures.

Atchison, KS: The Board of Trade of the City of Atchison; Printed at the Daily Champion Steam Printing Establishment, 1874. 8vo (8.625” x 5.625”), printed buff wrappers. 23, [1] pp., 1 full-page illus., 1 full-page map. CONDITION: Good, some foxing and soiling to wrappers, contents generally clean with just a few touches of foxing.

A promotional pamphlet for Atchison, Kansas, issued by the city’s Board of Trade and treating “in detail of the magnificent resources of the vast territory naturally tributary to this city, and the advantages of Atchison as a commercial and manufacturing centre.”

The contents consist of a map emphasizing the centrality of Atchison and its numerous railway connections; an account of the city and its suitability for new trade; notes on the various railroads, “a very important feature in the growth and prosperity of Atchison”; tables of statistics on the towns and counties tributary to Atchison; sections on wholesale trade, manufactories, education, religious organizations and other institutions; the Missouri River Bridge, then under construction (and illustrated here as a finished work); and notes on the region’s various agricultural products.

Atchison, Kansas, founded in 1854 along the western bank of the Missouri River, quickly developed into a significant commercial hub in the northeastern part of the state. Its river location made it an early outfitting point for emigrants, freighters, and traders headed west, and by the Civil War’s end the town’s civic leaders recognized that future growth depended on securing rail connections. In the late 1860s, Atchison aggressively courted rail investment—a crucial effort at a time when river trade was beginning to give way to rail transport as the dominant freight and passenger carrier in the Midwest.

Although Atchison was eclipsed as a railroad center by Kansas City and Omaha, by the 1870s multiple railways converged in the town. Chief among these was the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad (ATSF), chartered in 1859 and headquartered in Atchison during its formative years. Although the ATSF later moved its main offices to Topeka, the city remained a vital early construction and supply base for the line’s ambitious push southwestward toward New Mexico. The decade also brought the Missouri Pacific and the Central Branch Union Pacific into the region, giving Atchison direct connections east to St. Louis, north into Nebraska, and west into the Kansas interior. With these and other railway links, the city became an important center for grain, livestock, and manufactured goods, drawing merchants, laborers, and railroad employees in large numbers.

During the 1870s Atchison stood as one of the key junctions in Kansas railroading—an energetic link between the Missouri River trade and the expanding western frontier.

REFERENCES: “Atchison, Kansas” at Legends of Kansas online.

Item #9854

Price: $450.00

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