Introduction - UMKC Past, Present & Future HISTORY OF UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI–KANSAS CITY [UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS CITY]

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	Hopes and Dreams for a Hometown University On Oct. 2, 1933, after more than a dozen years of false starts and delicate negotiations, the civic leaders of Kansas City, Mo., launched an institute of higher learning, the University of Kansas City. The city, which had first taken root a century earlier as a tiny settlement at the convergence of two great rivers, the Kansas and the Missouri, was a natural crossroads for the nation’s great western trails. By 1933, it had burgeoned into a dominant metropolitan hub for railroads, and later for aviation and the nation’s interstate highway system.
Interest in establishing a hometown university had occupied the community and civic organizations since the end of World War I. Recognizing the necessity of building widespread and deeply rooted consensus, a committee appointed by the Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors spent several years developing a plan that would “crystallize sentiment and stimulate interest in the establishment of a real university in Kansas City.” By 1925, the chairman of the committee, A. Ross Hill, former president of the University of Missouri, issued a detailed blueprint for moving forward a recommendation to establish a city university.
Even before the committee’s blueprint could be publicized, difficulties developed.