The Röstigraben of America is located in Kansas City

Two cities, two different states, two mayors, one and the same name. Kansas City. On either side of the Missouri River, a bit like French-speaking and German-speaking Switzerland, two cities named Kansas City are separated by an invisible, but very real, line. Reporting.

marine brunner, kansas city (missouri)

Welcome to Kansas City. Same trees, same red bricks, same storefronts and restaurants. Even more or less neat houses and porches, where gourds and Halloween decorations are piled up. Same azure sky – which even looks like it’s been put through a ‘Pumkin Spice’ filter. However, Kansas City and Kansas City are not the same cities. One is in the state of Missouri. The other in the state of Kansas. And beware of anyone who dares to confuse them.

A common mistake

When he was still President of the United States, Donald Trump himself fell into the trap. An infamous gaffe that occurred on February 2, 2020, minutes after the Chiefs team won their first Super Bowl in 50 years.

“Congratulations to the Kansas City Chiefs for their superb game and their fantastic comeback, under immense pressure,” the former president tweeted, before deleting his tweet a few moments later, informed of his mistake. You have represented the great state of Kansas and, indeed, the entire United States very well. Our country is PROUD OF YOU!”

However, the Chiefs, as many Americans know, play against Missouri State. If the locals are so used to confusion from tourists that they welcome it with a smile and a shrug of the shoulders, they had flinched when it came from their head of state.

“Missouri, Kansas… You can be a little… picky about it,” Lauren, the owner of Mad Day, a stationery store on the Missouri side of Kansas City, admits when we ask her.

“KCMO” (Kansas City Missouri, as its residents call it) has approximately three times as many residents as Kansas City, on the Kansas side (“KCK”). Like the invisible barrier that separates the canton of Vaud from that of Neuchâtel or Geneva, or even German and French-speaking Switzerland, the border between these two cities does not make sense. A simple road, where rows of houses stand on either side.

“We are the first”

Kansas City, as its name does not indicate, was born in the state of Missouri, founded under the leadership of an American missionary and entrepreneur, John McCoy, in 1830 – a few years before the state of Kansas be founded (itself takes its name from the Kansas River, inspired by a local Native American people).

John McCoy had opted for this geographical area to open an equipment store for pioneers, heading to New Mexico and Oregon, before later establishing a boat landing, which allowed the economic development of the region.

It was around this time, just across the border in the state of Kansas, that new settlements began to be established. A region that subsequently became home to Slavic, Hispanic and African-American populations. A legacy that she still preserves today. “Kansas City of Kansas is considered blacker and poorer than the Missouri side, whiter and wealthier”explains a resident of “KCK”, which has become famous for its jazz singers, its barbecue and its baseball teams.

Two Kansas Cities were born. Separated by the Missouri-Kansas border. Each evolving on their own. The youngest would have voluntarily adopted the name of her neighbor to benefit from the fame and economic boom of her elder – without forgetting to dupe New York financiers into lending her money. As for whether the method really bore fruit…

“Not really,” according to Lauren, the owner of the stationery store located on the Missouri side. Because most of Kansas City’s businesses and points of interest are still on “its side” of the border. “Concerts, events…Everything fun is located in Missouri,” she says.

Which does not prevent each state on both sides from redoubling their efforts to attract businesses and entrepreneurs – to the point that in 2019, the governors of the two states signed an agreement to stop offering financial incentives to attract businesses to their side of the border.

The agreement does not seem to apply to the Chiefs, the football team that is the pride of the state of Missouri and which includes Travis Kelce, Taylor Swift’s boyfriend. The location of the stadium remains hotly contested to this day by each state.

Regarding the inhabitants on both sides of the Missouri River, on a personal or cultural level, there are no major differences or conflicts, say the inhabitants we met. “Apart from the Chiefs, everything is fine,” assures us Colin, waiter at Room 39, a restaurant located a few steps from the border. If there is a rivalry, it is good natured.

“We get along perfectly,” adds Kevin, a Kansas resident who works in a “Liquor Shops”, a store specializing in the sale of alcohol, in Missouri.

“It’s impossible to tell whether so-and-so lives on one side or the other,” also attests Tom, owner of Prospero’s Books, a bookstore located on the Missouri side, not far from the road that separates the two states. The sixty-year-old, who inherited his premises more than 25 years ago, however, would not leave it for anything in the world.

“I think the main difference is that people in Kansas have a kind of…pride. Something linked to their history,” explains a young waiter at Rebel Coffee.

Indeed, while Missouri was a slave state at the beginning of the 19th century, the youngest Kansas ended up joining the Union camp, alongside the abolitionist states.

A rivalry today that is more sweet than bitter. Complex, subtle and inexplicable to outsiders. A bit like our good old Röstigraben.

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