Kansas City, Missouri

===Exploration and settlement===
[[File:Westport Pioneers Statue.jpg|thumb|The Kansas City Pioneer Square monument in Westport features [[Pony Express]] founder [[Alexander Majors]], Westport/Kansas City founder [[John Calvin McCoy]], and Mountain-man [[Jim Bridger]] who owned Chouteau's Store.]]
In past centuries, the area's tribal inhabitants include the [[Hopewell tradition]], [[Mississippian culture]], [[Kaw people|Kansa]], [[Osage Nation|Osage]], [[Otoe]], and [[Missouria|Missouri]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.visitkc.com/visitors/things-do/trip-ideas-tools/discover/diversity/native-american-culture-kansas-city |title=Native American Culture in Kansas City |website=VisitKC.com |access-date=February 8, 2023}}</ref> The first documented European visitor to the eventual site of Kansas City was [[Étienne de Veniard, Sieur de Bourgmont]], who was also the first European to explore the lower Missouri River. Criticized for his response to the [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] attack on [[Fort Détroit]], he had deserted his post as fort commander and was avoiding French authorities. Bourgmont lived with a Native American wife in a village about {{convert|90|mi|km}} east near [[Brunswick, Missouri]], where he illegally traded [[furs]].

To clear his name, he wrote ''Exact Description of Louisiana, of Its Harbors, Lands and Rivers, and Names of the Indian Tribes That Occupy It, and the Commerce and Advantages to Be Derived Therefrom for the Establishment of a Colony'' in 1713 and ''The Route to Be Taken to Ascend the Missouri River'' in 1714. In the documents, he describes the junction of the "Grande Riv[ière] des Cansez" and Missouri River, as the first adoption of those names. French cartographer [[Guillaume Delisle]] used the descriptions to make the area's first reasonably accurate map.

The [[Kingdom of Spain|Spanish]] took over the region in the [[Treaty of Paris (1763)|Treaty of Paris]] in 1763, but were not to play a major role other than taxing and licensing Missouri River ship traffic. The French continued their [[fur trade]] under Spanish license. The [[Chouteau]] family operated under Spanish license at [[St. Louis, Missouri|St. Louis]], in the lower [[Missouri River Valley|Missouri Valley]] as early as 1765 and in 1821 the Chouteaus reached Kansas City, where [[François Chouteau]] established Chouteau's Landing.