Kaw Point

Kaw Point is the historic and present-day confluence of the Kansas (Kaw) River and the Missouri River in the Fairfax area of Kansas City, Kansas.¹ Today it is interpreted as Kaw Point Park, a roughly 10-acre National Park Service destination on the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, with shoreline access, a boat ramp, amphitheater, wooded ground, and a tribal memorial.¹

Geography and border history

The Kansas River ends at Kaw Point; the Missouri turns from a more southerly approach to run eastward toward St. Louis and the Mississippi.¹ At 94°36′ W, the point defined Missouri’s western border from Iowa to Arkansas when Missouri entered the Union in 1821. South of the Missouri that longitude still forms the Kansas–Missouri line; north of the river, Missouri later expanded west with the 1836 Platte Purchase.¹

Kaw Point entered Kansas Territory with the 1854 Kansas–Nebraska Act. Wyandotte incorporated in 1859 including the point; the 1886 consolidation that created modern Kansas City, Kansas folded it into the larger city.¹

Lewis and Clark (June 26–28, 1804)

The Lewis and Clark party camped at Kaw Point June 26–28, 1804, outbound from St. Louis. The National Park Service notes modern belief that the 1804 confluence lay about 0.25 miles north of the present point (channels migrate).¹

Journal extracts preserved in secondary synthesis:

• Patrick Gass (June 26): the party remained through the 27th and 28th, pitched tents, and built six-foot brush-and-log bowers; the “Canzan or Kanzas” was measured about 230 yards wide and “navigable to a great distance.”¹
• William Clark (June 27): “the Countrey about the mouth of this river is verry fine.”¹

The journals also noted suitability for a fort and abundant game, including the now-extinct Carolina parakeet (“Parrot queets”). Meriwether Lewis observed that Missouri water was muddier than Kaw water.¹

This site is the KCK counterpart to Case Park’s Lewis and Clark memorial geography on the Missouri side (see lewis-and-clark-at-case-park).

Park today

Kaw Point Park is administered by the National Park Service as a Lewis and Clark Destination Site: about 10 acres with wooded area, boat launch, amphitheater, and tribal memorial.¹

Sources

See also

• kansas-river
• missouri-river
• fairfax-industrial-district
• lewis-and-clark-at-case-park
• kansas-city-kansas
• Wiki

Footnotes

1. Wikipedia — “Kaw Point.” — asserts: Fairfax / KCK location; Kaw–Missouri confluence; NPS Kaw Point Park / Lewis and Clark Trail destination; 10-acre park amenities; Louisiana Purchase chain; camp June 26–28 1804; 0.25-mi north shift of historic confluence; Gass and Clark quotations; fort suitability / wildlife notes; 94°36′ W Missouri border role; 1854 territory; 1859 Wyandotte; 1886 KCK consolidation. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰