Growth

	The red lines on this 1871 railroad map show the progression of railroads along the central streets of the town and parallel to the river bank. (View larger image)

In 1858, 24 wagon trains started west from Atchison carrying nearly 3,000 tons of supplies and merchandise loaded on 775 wagons.12 The Colorado gold rush doubled this traffic by 1859 when Greeley wrote

... the Salt Lake mail, though made up at St. Joseph, is brought hither by steamboat and starts overland from this place; hence many trains are made up here for Laramie, Green River, Fort Hall, Utah, and I hear even for Santa Fe. I have seen several twelve-ox teams, drawing heavily-loaded wagons, start for Salt Lake, etc., today; there are others camped just outside the corporate limits, which have just come in; while a large number of wagons form a corral (yard, inclosure or encampment) some two miles westward. A little further away, the tents and wagons of parties of gold-seekers, with faces set for Pike's Peak, dot the prairie; one of them in charge of a grey-head who is surely old enough to know better. Teamsters from Salt Lake and teamsters about to start, lounge on every corner; Iwent out three or four miles on the high prairie this afternoon, and the furthest thing I could see was the white canvas of a moving train. 13

In 1858, the push for growth continued and Atchison's first elected mayor used his inaugural speech to add to the impetus, quoting

Let us, then, be up and doing.
With a heart for any fate.
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

	This 1878 view of Atchison, Kansas from Harper's Geography shows the density of growth on the levee by the the Mississippi River. (View larger image.)

And “...from 1858 to 1861 there was no place in the State that was more 'up and doing' than Atchison. As the outfitting point for the great emigrant trains to Salt Lake City and California, and finally in 1860, as the terminus of the Atchison & St. Joe Railroad, the place was 'still achieving, still pursuing' when the war checked her march and she "learned to labor and to wait ”— for further growth and—other railroads. The railroads came, the city grew in population and business importance...” 14

The pioneer railroad charter provided for the 20-mile line from Atchison to St. Joseph which, at its completion in 1860, “placed Atchison upon the great iron highway of prosperity.” Six months earlier, the telegraph had come to the town. With the Atchison- St. Joe railroad, the locus of government shipping points shifted away from nearby points to Atchison and overland mail routes relocated to the town. As the war began, negotiations were already in place for further railroad construction in Atchison and despite the embargo upon the railroad building during the Civil War, Atchison's established itself as a desirable starting point for increased railroad construction in the post-war era.

Epilogue: From Gateway to Central Place

	This 1880 bird's eye view of Atchison illustrates the density of the central town's growth around major transportation centers. View larger image.

Atchison's small industry grew up during the decades of the late 1860s and 1870s. Grain elevators, flour mills, grain elevators, foundry and machine works, a cracker factory, flax mill and linseed oil works are among those cited by Cutler. These developed around the transportation axis providing easy access to shipping.

By 1883, William Cutler's description of Atchison reflected changes since Greeley's visit. Cutler wrote

... A brisk, energetic, growing city with the most complete railroad connection of any point in the State, . . its streets filled with driving citizens and lined with busy mercantile houses or comfortable homes; possessing an ably-conducted press and pulpit, good schools, water works, gas works, etc. —all the modern improvements in the way of comfort and convenience; the center of a large grain trade, flour manufacture and stock interest; the center of the river border of Kansas; and . . . destined to become a great shipping point for a large extent of the country tributary to the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe road, and the railroads of Nebraska, which center here; possessing a splendid retail trade—this is Atchison, and much more could truthfully be said of such a city of 17,000 inhabitants. 15

Cutler's 1883 glowing history of Atchison depicts a thriving town still in the throes of economic growth and expansion. But growth slowdown or levelling off and a shift in direction is also a common pattern for gateway cities. “...In the case of a moving frontier...the front passes...cities remain in place to be supplanted by newer gateways farther out.” After 1880, Atchison's population stabilized and its rapid growth slowed. Just as the locus of shipping and transportation had begun in or shifted into Atchison during its first decades, new gateways opened and the country's population established itself further west. The town's function as a gateway to the far west evolved into that of a central place—a stable community predominantly oriented to regional and local spheres of influence.

...the seemingly prosperous city had already lost some of its momentum despite its financial support of railroad lines...and the usual frontier town promotional advertising. Omaha to the north and Kansas City to the south succeeded in capturing the major railways, river traffic dwindled, and Atchison...was left as a small city serving mainly the manufacturing and trading needs of the immediate vicinity. 16

[12] Reps, Cities of the American West, 430.

[13] Greeley, Horace. An overland journey.

[14] Cutler, “Atchison County,” Part 6. (Link current April 6, 2003)

[15] According to U.S. Census figures, in 1870, Atchison ranked fourteenth among western settlements with a population of 7,054. Lawrence, Kansas ranked twelfth with a population of 8,320; and Leavenworth, with a population of 17,873, was second only to San Francisco whose population numbered 149,473. In the 1880 Census, Athchison's population jumped to 15,105, moving it to thirteenth, (behind Topeka, twelfth, with 14,452 people), while Leavenworth's population dropped by more than 1,000 and it ranked tenth. These figures are published in Reps, John W. The Forgotten Frontier: Urban Planning in the American West Before 1890 (Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1981), 146-147.

[14] Cutler, “Atchison County,” Part 6. (Link current April 6, 2003)

[15] Reps, Cities of the American West, 430.