A Patrick Mahomes shovel pass split the name of two towns, two states, and one city. Thanks for coming to Kansas City, Kansas. Wait. (Takes 14 steps) Hey, Kansas City, Missouri!
A sports bar in Kansas City, Missouri, called Papa Vic’s The Jigger is in front of you. Across State Line Road, you can see a glass skybridge that says “The University of Kansas Hospital.” This is pretty much the only sign at the border that lets you know you’re no longer in Missouri. I see you in Kansas City, Kansas.
People who live in either city usually don’t mind when strangers get them mixed up. But not when that outsider is President Trump, and especially not when he does it in front of his 72 million Twitter followers after a hard-earned Super Bowl win.
“It doesn’t bother me that much; it bothers me that he’s ignorant,” Sara Ohadi-Hamadani, a 33-year-old medical student at the University of Kansas, said about Mr. Trump’s famous mistake in which he praised the “Great State of Kansas” for the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl win over the San Francisco 49ers.
There is a Kansas City in Kansas, but as most Americans know, the Chiefs play on the Missouri side. This side has about 490,000 people, which is three times as many as the Kansas City in Kansas, and people there don’t mind showing disrespect for their little brothers and sisters to the west.
“Everything that’s Kansas City is always in Missouri,” said Keith Williams, 22, who lives in Kansas City, Missouri. It’s the stadium. Lots of fun things to do. Kansas does not have any things. Not every person agrees.
“In the Kansas City metro area, we kind of have the underdog mentality,” Kansas City, Kan. Mayor David Alvey said. Mr. Alvey said that the Chiefs are from both Kansas City, Mo. and Kansas City, Kan. It’s short for Wyandotte County, which is where Kansas City, Kansas, is located. “We’re proud to be Dottes,” he said. “We also like to share the glory.”
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There have been many fights between Kansas and Missouri over the years, some over slaves, some over tax breaks, and some over politics. But they won’t let a mistake by the president get in the way of their plans. Not right now.
There have been disagreements over the years, but Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat from Kansas, said in a statement that there is no competition between Kansas and Missouri when it comes to the Chiefs.
Mr. Trump is not the first person to mix up “K.C.M.O.” and “K.C.K.” in this area. Hunter Pence, a professional baseball player, said he didn’t know he was in Missouri when the 2014 World Series game between his old team, the San Francisco Giants, and the Kansas City Royals. But now, people in the area are so used to seeing the mistake that they just shrug it off.
In 1853, eight years before Kansas became the 34th state, Kansas City, Missouri, became a city. The Missouri city’s name comes from the Kansas River, which was given by the Kanza People, who are Native Americans from the Kaw Nation. The city was first called the City of Kansas. In 1889, it was changed to Kansas City. Possum Trot is said to have been one of the names that residents thought about, so the people who live there might not have been confused about where their city is. Check out: “Go Possum Trot Chiefs!”
A local history teacher told The Kansas City (Missouri) Star that Kansas City, Kan., was founded in 1872 when a number of smaller towns joined together to make one city. The new city took on the name of its neighbor on purpose, the article says, so it could benefit from some of the growth going on the Missouri side.
A story in the area, Mr. Alvey said, says that the people who started Kansas City, Kan., wanted to trick investors in New York into giving their town money. One could argue about whether or not that worked, since its neighbor, Kansas City, Kan., is still much bigger.