John Calvin McCoy

...one "past" in Kansas City... is a fabricated] success story of prophecies redeemed, boldness vindicated, and the city itself a continuing testimony to triumph over the wilderness... Wohl and Brown, "The Usable Past" (1960) And there is the REAL "past" of Kansas City, recalled by: THE MAN WHO WAS THERE JOHN CALVIN McCOY But if you think 'Calvin' was a meek bookworm loafing around the cracker barrel, consider this: Child of the raw frontier, he grew up playing bone-cracking, skin-splitting games with Potawatomi boys. A pathfinder, he faced up to Black Dog-an Osage chief who towered 7 feet and weighed 300 pounds. A surveyor, he survived roiling dust storms, deadly floods and icy blizzards in the American wilderness. Yes, he alone saw impenetrable, tangled wilds along the Missouri River in 1830 give rise to Kansas City swarming with 100,000 residents in 1889. And he told us about it JOHN CALVIN MCCOY WAS THE "VERY FATHER OF KANSAS CITY" Montgomery and Kasper, Kansas City: An American Story (1999)