You’ve read the Request For Proposals. You see the cut-off date for submissions. You are considering drafting your Proposal. Ideally, a Proposal which positions you for a conversation pertaining to the conveyance of city-owned properties.
The submission of your proposal will enter you in a selection process. There is a lot that goes into writing a good proposal. Build plans. Architectural plans. Design plans. Financing. Marketing. Keep it simple. Align your Response to each component prioritized in the RFP-Q.
Salina, Kansas owes its founding to an expedition. Or rather, to a tour. Or rather, to be more specific, to a foot tour.
In 1857 a Scottish-born journalist, Free-State abolitionist, Civil War colonel for the Union army and future Kansas Congressman headed up a group that ventured west – by foot – from Fort Riley. Their goal? Find a new townsite.
That Colonel who led the foot tour was William A. Phillips. Colonel Phillips commanded the Indian Home Guard regiments during the Civil War.
To find his new townsite, Colonel Phillips led his men along the Smokey Hill River’s course. The Smokey Hill extends all the way to eastern Colorado. In Kansas, the Smokey Hill connects with the Republican River to form the Kansas River, just a tad east of Fort Riley in Junction City.
On their 35-mile foot tour, running low on supplies, Colonel Phillips and his men restocked in Manhattan. Then followed the bends of Blue River from Manhattan to Saline County.
Upon their arrival, on the banks of the Smoky Hill River, Colonel Phillips found an ideal setting. And what Colonel Phillips found would go on to become the very first settlement in the future Saline County.
Prior to Colonel Phillips arrival in today’s Saline County, the region had been claimed as hunting grounds by High Plains tribes. The High Plains tribes were hostile to American settlers. Attacks on settlers was commonplace. By 1858, the threat of those High Plains tribes attacks had been put to rest. Enabling Colonel Phillips to establish his settlement.
That same year, Colonel Phillips along with the group he led – David Phillips, Alexander M. Campbell Sr., A.C. Spillman, and James Muir – chartered the Salina Town Company with the Kansas territory legislature.
The following year Phillips, Phillips, Campbell, Spillman and Muir organized the surrounding area as Saline County.
The Kansas territory legislature approved the formation of five new Kansas territory counties. Saline County was one of the five.
Saline County was incorporated in 1860. Salina, Kansas – incorporated ten years later – would go on to become the county seat.
William A. Phillips was elected to the United States House of Representatives 1872. He served from 1873 through 1879.
Founded in Salina by Henry David Lee as the H.D. Lee Mercantile Company – originally, a grocery store – H.D. Lee Mercantile Company would go on to become Lee Jeans.
Lee Jeans opened their first garment factory in 1889. In Salina. Twenty-nine years after Salina was incorporated.
In 1863 Kansas Governor Thomas Carney signed a bill into law creating the second state university in Kansas. The university was to be built on 40 acres – the University of Kansas, KU. KU was founded in 1864.
This second university in the Sunflower State was constructed on Hogback Ridge in Lawrence. Hogback Ridge, later becoming, Mount Oread.
The relevance to Mount Oread and to Mount Oread’s role in that which Lawrence is most famous for is found under our feet.
Three years after Governor Carney signed into law the bill which would establish a Kansas university in Lawrence KU classrooms opened. KU started out as preparatory school fewer than 100 students.
Mount Oread sits on a bed of limestone. Limestone is chalk rock. Chalk rock transposed becomes rock chalk. Hence, our famous, Rock Chalk Jayhawk. Rock chalk. Chalk rock. Chalk rock sits below KU’s classrooms as the foundation of the university.
The Rock Chalk chant comes from the chalk rock of limestone found in Mount Oread.
Rock Chalk was originally a KU science club slogan.
Belleville, New Jersey is the birthplace of America’s Industrial Revolution. And it was a newcomer to Belleville – coming from Great Britain – that got the Revolution off the ground.
In 1753 Josiah Hornblower was commissioned to build what would become the first steam engine assembled in the New World. Josiah Hornblower left Great Britain, headed to New Jersey and built that first steam engine for the owners of the oldest copper mine in the British Colonies – Schuyler Copper Mine.
Schuyler Copper Mine was located in Belleville, which is where Josiah Hornblower’s steam engine was built.
Hornblower building that first steam engine in Belleville marked the birth of America’s Industrial Revolution.
As a 19th Century beef shortage ravaged Great Britain the Great Plains across the pond was opening to commercial interests.
Great Britain recognized this confluence of events:
a) The beef shortage in Great Britain.
b) Prime grazing land in the United States.
The price of beef shot up. Capital was flowing to the cattle industry. Enter additional capital coming from London.
Increased demand + Higher prices + Investment = A primed American cattle industry.
Yet in latter part of the 19th Century transporting cattle to the East Coast still involved horse-drawn wagons.
So capital was deployed to railroads.
Modernization of the transportation of cattle by rail facilitated the shipment of beef the East Coast. From the East Coast cattle could then be loaded onto ships headed to London. Thus, solving a problem in England: more beef
In 1865 William B. Howard filed a plat to establish a town 25 miles southeast of Kansas City – The Town of Strother.
The founder of the Town of Strother is William Bullitt Howard. The name – Town of Strother – paid homage Howard’s late wife, Maria Strother.
The name change to Lee’s Summit? There was already another Missouri town named Strother.
The “Lee” in Lee’s Summit? That comes from Howard’s neighbors, Pleasant and Lucinda Lea.
What should have been spelled out as Lea’s Sunmit on a boxcar at the Missouri Pacific Depot in the Town of Strother was a misspelling.
That boxcar should have had “Lea’s Summit” painted on it, L – E – A. However, “Lee’s Summit” – spelled L – E – E – was painted on the boxcar. It was a misspelling.
The “Summit” in Lee’s Summit? The definition of “summit” is, the highest point of a hill or mountain. Lee’s Summit is the highest elevation point on the Missouri Pacific line. That line ran through Lee’s Summit.
Lee’s Summit: A neighbor, a misspelling and an elevation point.
Newark’s Robert Treat Hotel opened in 1916, becoming Newark’s first luxury hotel.
The Robert Treat – with its 14 floors, health club privileges and guest lounge – is named after the man to whom Newark owes its British territorial status – Robert Treat.
Robert Treat was born in England in 1622 and arrived in Massachusetts eight years later.
In 1666 Robert Treat established a new territory for Great Britain, Pesayak Towne.
Pesayak Towne would go on to become New Milford. New Milford would go on to become Newark.
Newark was New Jersey’s third settlement, established by the man whose name adorns 50 Park Place in Downtown Newark.
In 1853 the first pier in Port Monmouth, New Jersey was built at the end of, what today, would be Church Street. Port Monmouth’s first pier extended far enough out into Raritan Bay to enable boats to dock, and not run aground.
Port Monmouth’s first pier was built by Port Monmouth Steamboat and Sloop Transportation Company. From that pier Port Monmouth Steamboat and Sloop Conpany was able to curry passengers into New York City on their steamboats.
Long, long ago, at the end of the pier off of Church Street in Port Monmouth, New Jersey, Port Monmouth Steamboat and Sloop Transportation Conpany built a pavilion to accommodate patrons heading into the Big Apple.
Port Monmouth Steamboat and Sloop Transportation Company created a commuter’s resort at the end of their pier.
Steamboat riders could stay overnight in a fine hotel on the pier. Or dine be enjoying a fine meal on the Raritan Bay. While awaiting for their ship to come arrive.
