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| [Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note |
The River Market (also known as Westport Landing and River Quay) is a riverfront shopping area and neighborhood in downtown Kansas City, Missouri which comprises the first incorporated area of Kansas City.
It stretches north of the downtown Interstate 70 loop to the Missouri River, and is bordered by the Broadway Bridge on the west and the Heart of America Bridge on the east. The area encompasses the location in which Kansas City was first founded.
The market name comes from its large open air farmers' market, the southern section of which was the public square in the mid 1800s.
The Quay name was applied to the neighborhood in the 1970s by developer Marion A. Trozzolo to capitalize on the neighborhood's early French connections as a fur trading post operated by François Chouteau of the powerful Chouteau clan starting in 1821. Trozzolo's vision was to make this neighborhood a destination for restaurants and bohemian shops. A mob war developed and three establishments burned or were blown up and several mobsters were killed. The war was part of an overall mob war that ultimately resulted in the mob being pushed out of influence of the Las Vegas casinos that was highlighted in the movie Casino.
It derives its "Westport" name because it was the dock on the Missouri River for the exchange of goods going to the community of Westport three miles to the south on higher ground that was operated by John Calvin McCoy. McCoy was to lead a group of settlers to created the "Town of Kansas" in the neighborhood in 1850 which in turn became the "City of Kansas" in 1853.
Its large riverfront warehouses are lofts and occupied by restaurants, bars, shops, cafes, and parks. The Arabia Steamboat Museum displays artifacts from a recovered steamboat. |
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