The largest city on the Illinois River, Peoria, Illinois, is the county seat of Peoria County, is halfway between Chicago and St. Louis, and was a two-and-a-half hour drive from our last stop in Iowa. First settled in 1680, it is the oldest European settlement in Illinois. It was officially named Peoria in 1825 after […]

Columbus Junction, Iowa was an hour South of Cedar Rapids on our trip. Originally known as Sand Bank, the city lies at the confluence of the Iowa and the Cedar rivers. The first Burlington, Cedar Rapids and Minnesota Railway train arrived on February 7, 1870, and a restaurant and boarding house — the first local business — opened the […]

A four-hour drive into Iowa from Omaha, Cedar Rapids is named for the surging rapids in the Cedar River. The second largest city in Iowa, with about 130,000 residents, it is a commercial and industrial city as well as a distribution and rail center for an extensive agricultural area. The largest corn-processing city in the […]

Omaha was the first stop on our tour of the heartland. Omaha sits on the Missouri River, which we followed in our three-hour drive up from Kansas City. The Lewis and Clark expedition passed through in 1804 and the first Mormon migrants wintered there on their way to Utah. The city grew rapidly as the […]

A view from America’s heartland where the heart and soul of entrepreneurs drive innovation and renewal When Victor Hwang, vice president of Entrepreneurship, came to the Kauffman Foundation earlier this year, it became very clear to him that there was a renewal happening in the heartland. “You see entrepreneurs bursting in Kansas City. You see […]

The ESHIP Summit 2017 was the Kauffman Foundation’s inaugural global gathering of leaders working to facilitate and spread entrepreneurship through the creation of entrepreneurial ecosystems. 450 attendees from 48 states and 9 countries – entrepreneurs, mayors, economic developers, grassroots community leaders, university leaders, academics, philanthropists, corporate leaders, and media – collaborated to create actionable plans […]

The Kauffman Foundation’s annual Mayors Conference on Entrepreneurship brings mayors, entrepreneurs, and entrepreneurship experts together to discuss ways to promote startup activity and encourage higher levels of entrepreneurship in their cities. Mayors and entrepreneurs collaborate and align their objectives, creating a new national community where the most difficult problems are addressed using the best aspects […]

Please note that the following content is specific to the 2018 Mayors Conference on Entrepreneurship. Updates for the 2020 convening can be found here. In 2018, more than 142 city officials, including 102 mayors, attended the Mayors Conference on Entrepreneurship in Kansas City, Missouri. The themes of the conference included: mayors understanding their own data […]

Milestones and pivotal moments from Ewing Kauffman’s early steps to extend his outreach in Kansas City and beyond by establishing the Kansas City Royals and creating his philanthropic foundation to his death and enduring legacy. Ewing Kauffman establishes the Kansas City Royals and his philanthropic foundation with the same sense of opportunity and convictions he […]

Milestones and pivotal moments from Ewing Kauffman’s employment as a pharmaceutical salesman to receiving the Horatio Alger Award. Ewing Kauffman leaves a sales job to start his own venture and he never looks back. He has an engaging manner, charm, and gleaming blue eyes. He emerges as a legendary pharmaceutical salesman, challenges a motivated team […]