Ilus W. Davis served as the mayor of Kansas City from 1963 to 1971. He was one of the first students to attend the city's university, which would later become the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and later got his law degree from the University of Missouri in Columbia. Some of his major contributions as mayor included the building of the Kansas City International Airport and the initial construction for the Truman Sports Complex. After the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.