While there was a tremendous traffic across the plains from Atchison in 1857, 1858 and 1859, and for a number of years later the “town was alive with business,” it is only fair to record that the town itself was not a thing of beauty and a joy forever, in spite of the efforts of Mayor Pomeroy and the city fathers who put the city in debt to the extent of $9,000, September 5, 1859, for public improvements. Frank A. Root in his admirable book, “The Overland Stage to California,” published in 1901, has this to say in part upon his arrival here in November, 1858: “It was in November, 1858, that I first set foot on the levee in Atchison. I stepped from the steamer, ‘Omaha,’ which boat was discharging its cargo of freight at the foot of Commercial street. At that time the place was a very small town. I took up my residence in Atchison the following spring, having this time come up the river on a steamboat from Weston where I had been employed as a compositor in the office of the _Platte Argus_. On landing at Atchison I had a solitary dime in my pocket, and, after using that to pay for my lunch, I started out in search of a job. A sign over the office which read: ‘Freedom’s Champion, John A. Martin, Editor and Publisher,’ attracted my attention. It hung above the door of the only newspaper office in the city at that time, but preparations were then being made by Gideon O. Chase, of Waverly, N. Y., to start the _Atchison Union_, which was to be a Democratic paper. I secured a place in the _Champion_ office, beginning work the following morning. As I walked about the town I remember of having seen but four brick buildings on Commercial street. A part of the second story of one of them, about half a square west of the river, was occupied by the _Champion_. The Massasoit House was the leading hotel. The Planters, a two-story frame house, was a good hotel in those early days, but it was too far out to be convenient, located as it was, on the corner of Commercial and Sixth streets. West of Sixth there were but few scattering dwellings and perhaps a dozen business houses and shops. The road along Commercial street, west of Sixth, was crooked, for it had not been graded and the streets were full of stumps and remnants of a thick growth of underbrush that had previously been cut. A narrow, rickety bridge was spanning White Clay creek where that stream crosses Commercial street at Seventh street. Between Sixth and Seventh streets, north of Commercial street there was a frog pond occupying most of the block, where the boys pulled dog-grass in highwater, and where both boys and girls skated in winter. The Exchange hotel on Atchison street, between Second and the Levee, built of logs—subsequently changed to the National—was the principal hotel of Atchison, and for more than a quarter of a century stood as an old familiar landmark, built in early territorial days.