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Home » Missouri » Kansas City - An Overview and History » PresentKansas City is home to many major headquarters. Some of the bigger names who call K.C. home are the Pony Express, AMC Entertainment, Commerce Bancshares, Inc., H&R Block, Inc., Russell Stover Candies, American Century Companies, Inc., Wolferman's, Burns & McDonnell, Hallmark Cards and Marion Laboratories (now Hoechst-Marion-Rousell). It is also the headquarters of the Community of Christ, the Nazarene Church, and the Unity School of Christianity.
K.C. ranks first in inland foreign trade zone space, underground storage space, greeting card publishing, frozen food storage and distribution and hard winter wheat marketing. It ranks second in wheat flour production and the size of its rail center. Both General Motors and Ford have major plants here, ranking Kansas City eighth in the nation in auto assembly. The city is also home to a Harley Davidson motorcycle plant.
Kansas City is known as the "City of Fountains." Rome is the only city on earth with more fountains than Kansas City. No matter where you go in the city, you'll discover a new picturesque fountain.
Among the many favorites is the J.C. Nichols Memorial Fountain on the Country Club Plaza. Sculpted by France’s Henri Greber in 1910, the fountain’s mounted figures were originally planned for a Long Island estate. The Sea Horse Fountain, at Meyer Circle on Ward Parkway, includes ornately carved ocean figures topped by a seventeenth-century Venetian cherub. And Crown Center boasts a series of skyward-shooting water columns that children run among during spring and summer days.
Kansas City’s art treasury includes the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, the University of Missouri-Kansas City Gallery of Art and the Johnson County Community College Gallery of Art. But the undisputed must-visit is the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, opened in 1933.
The Nelson-Atkins sprang from an $11 million bequest from William Rockhill Nelson, the founder of the Kansas City Star newspaper who died in 1915, and $1 million donated by reclusive art patron Mary Atkins. Nelson’s money was earmarked for art acquisitions, while Atkins’s went for the land and building.
Instead of starting with an existing collection, museum trustees took advantage of Depression-era economics to buy art and artifacts from around the world. Today the collection includes one of the most significant Asian aggregations in the country as well as American and European art that includes Monet, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Homer and Bingham.
The museum grounds are highlighted by giant white and orange shuttlecocks, sculpted by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, and the Henry Moore Sculpture Garden. Moore, a renowned British sculptor, created large bronze pieces including animal forms and reclining figures. The 13 pieces at the Nelson-Atkins represent the largest collection of Moore’s monumental bronze outside of England.
Already one of the top museums in the country, the Nelson-Atkins is in the beginning stages of a $200 million addition that will expand the museum by 71 percent.
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