16 THE KANSAS CITY BRIDGE.

of railroad were in full operation, while several more were projected. Though
the bridge was originally built only for the use of the Kansas City and
Cameron Railroad, seven months before its completion the west branch of
the North Missouri Railroad had been finished to Harlem, and this company had
made arrangements to run over the bridge, while the Missouri Valley Railroad
had been extended from its former terminus opposite Leavenworth to the same
point, so that the bridge became at.once, not only a link in the line of rail-
roads extending from Chicago to the South-west, but united the railway system
of Northern and Southern Missouri and Kansas at a common point, near the
boundary of the two States.

On the south bank of the river, the Kansas Pacific Railway, starting from
the State line at Kansas City, had been completed 405 miles, nearly to the
eastern boundary of Colorado. The Missouri River, Ft. Scott, and Gulf Railroad,
a line intended to occupy a part of the ground embraced in the original scheme
of the Kansas City, Galveston, and Lake Superior Railroad, had come under
the management of the same interests which built the Kansas City and Cameron
Railroad and the bridge, was already in operation for about 50 miles, and
has since been extended to the south line of Kansas. These with the Pacific
Railroad of Missouri, and the Missouri River Railroad, which were operated as
one line from St. Louis to Leavenworth, made up the list of seven railroads in
operation to Kansas City, while steps were being taken, and subscriptions
obtained, for another eastern outlet, to connect with the lines controlled by the
Pennsylvania Railroad, by way of the town of Louisiana on the Mississippi
River ; for the Kansas City, Springfield and Memphis Railroad, and for the
Kansas City and Santa Fe Railroad, a line designed to tap the business of the
Leavenworth, Lawrence, and Galveston Railroad, and to extend into South-
western Kansas, which is now in process of construction.

The completion of the bridge united the three railroads on the north and
east side of the river with the four on the south and west, made Kansas City the
convenient point of exchange for all business going south-westerly, and gave it
such commercial importance as wellnigh to justify the boast of its sanguine
citizens, that it was destined to become the metropolis of the South-west,

It had been the wish of the people of Kansas City that a separate carriage-