Of all the wonderful towns in the West, none has attracted more attention in the East than Kansas City. I think I am not wrong in saying that it is largely the product of Eastern energy and capital, and that its closest relations have been with Boston. I doubt if ever a new town was from the start built up so solidly or has grown more substantially. The situation, at the point where the Missouri River makes a sharp bend to the east, and the Kansas River enters it, was long ago pointed out as the natural centre of a great trade. Long before it started on its present career it was the great receiving and distributing point of South-western commerce, which left the Missouri River at this point for Santa Fé and other trading marts in the South-west. Aside from this river advantage, if one studies the course of streams and the incline of the land in a wide circle to the westward, he is impressed with the fact that the natural business drainage of a vast area is Kansas City. The city was therefore not fortuitously located, and when the railways centred there, they obeyed an inevitable law. Here nature intended, in the development of the country, a great city. Where the next one will be in the South-west is not likely to be determined until the Indian Territory is open to settlement. To the north, Omaha, with reference to Nebraska and the West, possesses many similar advantages, and is likewise growing with great vigor and solidity. Its situation on a slope rising from the river is commanding and beautiful, and its splendid business houses, handsome private residences, and fine public schools give ample evidence of the intelligent enterprise that is directing its rapid growth.