FILE: A vintage postcard highlights the thriving Kansas City stockyards.
Kansas City Stockyards, West Bottoms
FILE: ' Kansas City in the 19th Century. Meatpackers, mills and railroads: They made the city . . . Filthy & rich.'
FILE: Kansas City in the 19th Century -- Meatpackers, mills and railroads: They made the city. . . Filthy & rich.
FILE: Cattle from Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas were rocessed through the then-massive stockyards, 1938.
FILE: The epic flood of July 1951 idled the giant meatpacking plants of the West Bottoms, and one processor, the Cudahy Packing Co., closed for good. About 12,000 head of livestock drowned in the disaster.
FILE: 1922. The American Royal moves into a new $600,000-plus facility (left) at the Kansas City Stockyards. The dedication ceremony features the famed Messiah chorus of Lindsborg, Kan.
FILE: An 1885 poster advertising the Stockyards and related businesses. Credit: KANSAS CITY HISTORICAL SOCIETY
FILE: Long lines of railroad freight, stock and tank cars were damaged by flood waters in the rail yards in the Central Industrial district. More than 150 cars and locomotives are shown in this aerial photograph. Bent like wounded serpents, the long lines of cars stand in water almost up to the roofs. Many have been swept from their tracks. July 13, 1951
FILE: Some buildings in the West Bottoms barely remained above water during the flood of 1951.
FILE: These views from the bluffs show how the West Bottoms developed rapidly from fields in 1869 (left) to a rail and business center by 1871
FILE: Within two years of the 1869 opening of the Hannibal Bridge, the West Bottoms developed from open fields (left) to a budding rail and business center (right photo, taken in 1871.)
FILE: At the doorstep of downtown Kansas City, Mo., the floodwaters of the Kansas River covered the West Bottoms. The highway at left is the Intercity Viaduct, now called the Lewis and Clark. The bridge at the upper right is the 12th Street Viaduct. Photo courtesy of Carolyn Lane.
swift stockyard
FILE: 1869 First meat-packing house built to serve the existing stockyards. Cows being herded.
FILE: Auctioneers prepare an old sign for viewing in anticipation of the sale at the Kansas City Stockyards in 1991.
FILE: Richard Folson started working at the stockyards in 1952. This photo was taken in 1991.
FILE: Preparing for stockyards sale in 1991.
FILE: On the last stockyard sale in Nov. 1991, Gary Eads fills out a bill of sale.
FILE: The Golden Ox has been in the West Bottoms since 1949, when that was the location of the Kansas City Stockyards.
FILE: Genessee Royale Bistro is a cozy café that opened in December 2011 in the West Bottoms. Some local business owners are trying to rebrand the area as The Stockyards District.
FILE: "This is the passing of an era," West Bottoms businessman Bill Haw said as demolition began on the old stock yards power plant. The structure, which Haw said dates to before 1900, was structurally unsound and dangerous. On Monday, Oct. 13, 2008, workers used a cable to pull down the building's smokestack.
FILE: The 'Bull Mountain' sculpture at Interstate 670 and Genessee overlooks the former stockyards.
FILE: At the reunion Friday in the American Royal building, Mary S. Branton of Kansas City pointed out photographs and newspaper headlines from July 1951. Branton related stories of the flood to daughter Page Reed (left) and grandchildren Mary and Coleman Reed of Fairway.