KCUR 89.3
How close did Kansas City come to being named Possum Trot? It s complicated. The People s History podcast digs into the facts behind the old story.
John McCoy and 13 of his buddies rounded up $4,220 in 1838 and paid Jackson County for the area we now know as downtown Kansas City. McCoy had been operating an outpost called Westport, a supply stop for settlers and others heading west. He figured the purchase would be good for business.
But the land they purchased had no name, no way to talk about it, nothing to scribble on a map so that others would make it a destination. The group would have to come up with something post haste.