This 1858 plat map of north Atchison delineates the section of town where most of the town's businesses, civic, social, educational and religious organizations would develop. (View larger image)

Atchison grew as a sequential wave in a hierarchy of gateway cities spearheaded in the midwest by the giants, St. Louis and Kansas City. In Atchison, the progression of growth was suspended by the Civil War. Nonetheless, The dynamics of a market economy consciously and systematically shaped the progression of the town's development.

When Atchison was founded, a ferry (the only existing structure in the area except a deserted cabin) linked Kansas with Missouri, and laid the foundation for Atchison's rapid development as one of the most important points for freighting along the Missouri River. Moving quickly, the founders had the land surveyed on September 20, 1855, and opened for sale following day.

By the end of the year, a number of the heaviest Salt Lake freighters in the country chose Atchison as their outfitting and starting point on the Missouri river. “This is what gave the place its first business start, and the great channel through which this immense traffic poured—the great overland route to Utah and California— brought Atchison into intimate communication with the whole West.” 7 Subsequently, the town's overland linkages began as Atchison became the eastern terminus of the Great Overland Stage Line to Folsom. More than 1,900 miles long, the line was documented as the longest single route in the world at that time.

	The attached map plots the growth of Atchison during its first years, Explore which institutions and organizations developed first.

This sudden influx of business into the new town was not by chance. On the day of the first land sale, “action was taken upon two matters which always come up first in new communities—the project of building a hotel and the enterprise of establishing a newspaper.” 8 The newspaper served as a voice for the new community; the hotel, necessary accomodation for speculators, transients and potential settlers. By November 1856, the town had grown sufficiently to send out an advertising circular:

To show the capacity of Atchison to supply the demands of the country, we here enumerate some of the business houses, vis:

Six large dry goods and grocery stores, wholesale and retail; six family groceries and provision stores, wholesale and retail; one large clothing sore, one extensive furniture store, with mattresses and bedding of all sorts; one stove, sheet iron, and tinware establishment...several large warehouses sufficient to store all the goods of emigrants and traders across the plains...one weekly newspaper—the Squatter Sovereign—having the largest circulation of any newspaper in Kansas;...two commodious hotels and several boarding houes, one bakery...three blacksmith shops, two wagon makers, and several carpenter shops, one cabinet maker, two boot and shoe maker's shops, one saddle and harness maker's shop, one extensive butchery andmeatmarket, a first rate ferry...the saw mills...two brick yards, two lime kilns.9

Atchison's exponential growth continued. By 1857, two banks, a gristmill, six insurance companies, eight hardware establishments, nineteen retail groceries, eight wholesale groceries, twelve dry goods stores and twenty-six law firms served a population of about 500.10