History
François Chouteau established a flourishing trading post at present-day Kansas City in 1821
William Rockhill Nelson co-founded The Kansas City Star newspaper in 1880
R. A. Long co-founded Long-Bell Lumber Company in 1887, making him a lucrative lumber baron and dedicated philanthropist
J.C. Nichols is the real estate visionary who created the Country Club Plaza and numerous residential districts, beginning in 1905
UMB Financial Corporation, a diversified financial services holding company was founded in 1913
Nell Donnelly Reed founded Donnelly Garment Company, one of the largest women's ready-to-wear dress manufacturers in the world, in 1916
Joyce C. Hall founded Hallmark Cards, the largest greeting card manufacturer in the world, in 1917
Clara and Russell Stover founded Russell Stover Candies Inc., the largest boxed chocolate manufacturer in the U.S., in 1921
John Ernest Dunn (Ernie) founded JE Dunn Construction Company, an international construction company, in 1924
Arthur Bryant’s world-renowned barbeque restaurant was founded in 1940
In 1950, Ewing Marion Kauffman founded Marion Laboratories, a pharmaceutical company
Brothers Henry and Richard Bloch co-founded H&R Block, the world’s largest tax services provider, in 1955
In 1966 the Kauffman Foundation was established in Kansas City. Today, it is a $2.2 billion private foundation with entrepreneurship and education at the core of its mission, generating $115 million annually in grants toward a vision that is recasting education and reshaping the workforce of the future.
Neal Patterson, Cliff Illig and Paul Gorup co-founded Cerner Corporation, a globally recognized health care innovation provider, in 1979
Min Kao and Gary Burrell co-founded Garmin International Inc., leading worldwide provider of navigation systems, in 1989
KCSourceLink, a free entrepreneurial resource organization, was founded in 2003
In 2005 UMKC’s Henry W. Bloch School of Management launched the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Think Big Partners, a state-of-the-art business center serving startup businesses in KC was founded in 2009
Google announced Kansas City as the first home of Google Fiber, the nation’s first fiber ultra high speed internet in 2011
Following the announcement of Google Fiber many entrepreneurial resources, communities and organizations were established in 2012:
- 1 Million Cups
- Digital Sandbox KC
- KC Startup Village
- SparkLabKC
- Sprint Accelerator (now T-Mobile Accelerator) by Techstars
Startland News launched in
2015 to report on KC’s most innovative ideas and to act as a resource and advocate for innovators and early-stage businesses in the region by serving as their storytellers.
As a product of KC Rising's economic development, business and civic partnership, the
KC Rise Fund was created in
2016 to provide venture capital to companies in the KC region.
Amazon Web Services built its first
AWS Smart Region in
2017 with Sprint’s wi-fi in partnership with
Xaqt, one of the startups that began its story in the KC entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Learn more about the evolution of entrepreneurship in Kansas City.