Elijah McGee was a Democratic Kansas City Mayor in 1870 and a developer whose family name is applied to many streets in Kansas City.

McGee was born in Shelby County, Kentucky

Shelby County, Kentucky

Shelby County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of 2010, the population was 42,074. Its name is in honor of Isaac Shelby, the first Governor of Kentucky. Its county seat is Shelbyville...

. His family moved to Kansas City to Clay County, Missouri and then to Jackson County, Missouri

Jackson County, Missouri

Jackson County is a county located in the U.S. state of Missouri. With a population of 674,158 in the 2010 census, Jackson County is the second most populous of Missouri's counties, after St. Louis County. Kansas City, the state's most populous city and focus city of the Kansas City Metropolitan...

 where they bought a half section

Section (United States land surveying)

In U.S. land surveying under the Public Land Survey System , a section is an area nominally one square mile, containing , with 36 sections making up one survey township on a rectangular grid....

 of land of what is now Downtown Kansas City

Downtown Kansas City

Downtown Kansas City is the central business district of Kansas City, Missouri and the Kansas City Metropolitan Area. It is located between the Missouri River in the north, to 31st Street in the south; and from the Kansas–Missouri state line east to Troost Avenue as defined by officials of the...

. When McGee was 12 he ran away from home to Texas. He returned to Kansas City in 1841. He made a fortune in the California Gold Rush

California Gold Rush

The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The first to hear confirmed information of the gold rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands , and Latin America, who were the first to start flocking to...

 and used the money to build the Southern House hotel at 16th and Grand. The hotel would become a hotbed of southern sympathizers in the Bleeding Kansas

Bleeding Kansas

Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas or the Border War, was a series of violent events, involving anti-slavery Free-Staters and pro-slavery "Border Ruffian" elements, that took place in the Kansas Territory and the western frontier towns of the U.S. state of Missouri roughly between 1854 and 1858...

 war.

McGee arranged to meet steamboats on the Missouri River

Missouri River

The Missouri River flows through the central United States, and is a tributary of the Mississippi River. It is the longest river in North America and drains the third largest area, though only the thirteenth largest by discharge. The Missouri's watershed encompasses most of the American Great...

with bands.