OPINION — City Hall was sweating bullets in the spring of 1900. The 12th Census of the United States would be taken on June 1, and the municipality was in serious trouble. An up-and-coming new kid 50 miles down the road was overtaking it in population, commerce and influence.
Today, St. Joseph, Missouri (St. Joe to locals), calls itself the place “where the Pony Express began, and Jesse James ended.” (The legendary outlaw was gunned down there in 1882.)
What began in the 1820s as a trading post nestled between the Missouri River and the Blacksnake Hills mushroomed into a frontier boomtown. Steamboat traffic, combined with the western terminus of the new iron horse, increased its size and prosperity as a major jumping-off point for settlers heading west.
