Featured in this east-looking, low-oblique photograph is the confluence near downtown Kansas City of the southeast-flowing Missouri River and the east-flowing Kansas River. The Missouri River continues an eastward path from Kansas City. Taken before the flood of 1993 that covered most of the floodplain, this photograph shows agricultural field patterns in the floodplains of both rivers. Kansas City is a major commercial and transportation hub in a rich grain and livestock producing area and was the starting point in the mid and late 1880s for many of the expeditions into the Great Plains and western United States.