Within this nineteenth-century history of the city of St. Joseph, Missouri, the author examines the city's potential, its successes, how it competed for population, for economic stature, for important transportation links, for culture distinction, and how its initial promise to win regional dominence over other cities of the Great plains went unfulfilled. Robidoux's Town tells the story of a city and the important role it played in the development of the American west as well as being a part of the nation's urban history.