Train tracks snake throughout the area. Kansas City is the second-busiest rail hub in the country. The Kansas City area has more freeway lane-miles per capita than any other metropolitan area. Yellow Corp., based in Overland Park, has become the second-largest pure trucking company in the United States. Barges head up and down the Missouri River.
Steel is unloaded from one in Kansas City.
It's not just a reaction to being strategically located in the middle of the country, naturally linking the East and West coasts and the northern and southern borders. As we look out over the expanse of concrete at Kansas City International Airport or ponder the future of the intermodal transportation hub at the former Richards-Gebaur Memorial Airport, it's important to recall that the city's future as a transportation hub wasn't so clear in 1850. Kansas City's future, period, wasn't clear-cut that year, when the city was incorporated. Kansas City lagged behind communities such as St. Joseph and Leavenworth in population and development. When the Hannibal Bridge opened in 1869, it was the first permanent rail structure across the Missouri River.