The Alexander Majors Room
Room 203
Alexander Majors was born on October 4, 1814, near Franklin, Simpson County, Kentucky, the eldest of the family of two boys and a girl. When Alexander was about five years of age, his father moved the family to Missouri, when the state was still a territory. When Alexander soon became a married man with daughters, he found it impossible to meet his growing necessities as a struggling Cass County farmer.
In desperation he turned to the freighting trade. His six wagons and teams set the groundwork business that would later give Majors a world-wide reputation as a freighting genius. Majors ran his wagons in trains of 25 each, pulled by at least a dozen oxen. He usually rode alongside the train, communicating his instructions with pony-mounted messengers. One such runner got his start when his mother asked Majors to give her 12-year-old son a job. Majors hired him and later taught him to read and sign his name.
This was little Willy Cody who became a part of American folklore as “Buffalo Bill” Cody. He became a wagon master, and later one of the most famous of the Pony Express riders. Buffalo Bill had this to say about Alexander Majors: “Every man, from wagon boss and teamster down to rustler and messenger boy, seemed anxious to gain the good will of Alexander Majors and to hold it, and today he has fewer foes than anyone I know, in spite of his position as chief of what were certainly a wild and desperate lot of men.”
The growth and prosperity of Kansas City and much of the western United States can be attributed to Alexander Majors. He and his great freighting firm, Russell, Majors and Waddell, are responsible for establishing Kansas City’s commercial destiny along with the foundation and principles on which the west was built. Major’s freighting company started the Pony Express. The business originally intended to cross the west once a week, moving important mail on horseback. Its patrons were the government, newspapers, banks and businesses.
Civil War soon came along, and Edward Creighton and his associates completed the transcontinental telegraph in unexpectedly fast time. That put the Pony down for good. Majors did not compose his memoirs until the end of the 19th century. His life story was then heavily edited by Colonel Prentiss Ingraham, a fabled dime novelist. Buffalo Bill paid to print the memoirs. Majors later complained that Colonel Ingraham had taken liberties with the story.
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Room Amenities
The Alexander Majors room features 1 Queen size bed, a single lavatory, & a single shower.
All rooms have wired and wireless internet & individual heat/ac.
