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Arabia (steamboat)

1853 ships1988 archaeological discoveriesDisasters in MissouriHistory of Kansas City, MissouriMaritime incidents in September 1856
Missouri RiverPaddle steamers of the United StatesShips built in Brownsville, PennsylvaniaShipwrecks of the Missouri RiverSteamboats of the Mississippi RiverSteamboats of the Missouri RiverTransportation disasters in Missouri

The Arabia is a side wheeler steamboat that sank in the Missouri River near what today is Kansas City, Kansas, on September 5, 1856. The boat sank after hitting a tree snag submerged in the river, and was rediscovered in 1988 by a team of local researchers. Artifacts recovered from the site are now housed in the Arabia Steamboat Museum.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Arabia (steamboat) (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

Arabia (steamboat)
North 42nd Street, Kansas City Quindaro Bluffs

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Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 39.173602777778 ° E -94.670247222222 °
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Address

Arabia

North 42nd Street
66104 Kansas City, Quindaro Bluffs
Kansas, United States
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Nearby Places

English Landing Park
English Landing Park

English Landing Park is located along the Missouri river in Parkville, Missouri, United States. The area the park now sits were once just low water areas of the Missouri River. It includes a 3-mile jogging/biking trail that follows the river's edge, several shelters for picnics, a soccer field, a baseball diamond, volleyball courts, 2 playgrounds (one for small kids and one for bigger kids). Recently, a small 9-hole Frisbee golf course has been added around the jogging/biking trail. There is also a busy set of train tracks that runs along the length of the park. The area of present-day English Landing Park was bought from the English Brothers by Colonel George S. Park in 1838, who was a veteran of the Texas war of independence. He purchased a riverboat landing from them as well, and that riverboat landing as well as the present-day park became a civil war port of call for slave trade. The Riverpark Pub and Eatery, which sits right next to the rail road tracks at the entrance to the park, was built in the mid-19th century as a coal-fired twin-boiler power plant that fed the entire city. The city itself was founded by Colonel Park in 1844 and by 1850 he had built warehouses and a large stone hotel. In 1853 he established one of Platte County's earliest newspapers, The Industrial Luminary. Parkville itself did not become a Civil War battlefield, but there was still mass genocide as numerous slaves tried desperately to escape across the river into Kansas for freedom. These slaves were buried in three large but unmarked cemeteries in the present-day Misty Woods subdivision. After the Civil War, the port and the riverboat landing were all but abandoned and the area slowly changed from a bustling port city to what is present-day Parkville. The park includes the historic Waddell "A" Truss Bridge, built 1898, subject of a patent, which spanned Linn Branch Creek.

Quindaro Townsite
Quindaro Townsite

Quindaro Townsite is a former settlement, then ghost town, and now an archaeological district. It is around North 27th Street and the Missouri Pacific Railroad tracks in Kansas City, Kansas. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 22, 2002. The townsite was purchased and organized in 1856 from and by Wyandots for development as a port-of-entry for Free Staters settling further within the Kansas Territory, with construction starting in 1857. The boomtown population peaked at 600, rapidly settled by migrants. They were supported by the New England Emigrant Aid Company, who were trying to help secure Kansas as a free territory. One of several villages hugging the narrow bank of the Missouri River under the bluffs, the town was established as part of the resistance to stop the westward spread of slavery. Quindaro's people also aided escaped slaves from Missouri as a "station" on the Underground Railroad. After Kansas was established as a free state, there was less unique need for the port and the growth slowed in the commercial district. At the same time the economy in Kansas suffered from over-speculation. In 1862 classes were started for children of former slaves, and in 1865 a group of men chartered Quindaro Freedman's School (later Western University), the first black school west of the Mississippi River. Former slaves continued to gather in the residential community, which became mostly African American by the late 19th century. The area was incorporated into Kansas City in the early 20th century. Western University closed in 1943. The overall town sharply declined with a nationwide economic depression and with the American Civil War. The lower commercial townsite was abandoned and became overgrown. It was rediscovered during archaeological study in the late 1980s, which revealed many aspects of the 1850s town. The only structure surviving from Western University and Quindaro is a full-size statue of abolitionist John Brown. In 1978 the John Brown Memorial Plaza was dedicated. The John D. Dingell Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act designated it the Quindaro Townsite National Commemorative Site in 2019, allowing the National Park Service to provide technical and financial assistance for preservation and education.