In many ways, Kansas City’s early history is that of a stereotypical frontier town. Native Americans, pioneers, and cowboys are indelibly linked to the settlement of the area and the city’s heritage. Cattle and other livestock are crucial. But contrary to popular mythology, the Kansas City Stockyards did not fit the spurs-and-rawhide image of the American West as much as it reflected American industrialization.

In a discussion of his essay in the new book Wide-Open Town: Kansas City in the Pendergast Era, UMKC historian John Herron examines the city’s stockyards industry in the opening decades of the 20th century and explores how the multi-ethnic stockyards workforce gave a young KC a distinctive flavor.