Lee’s Summit is a city located within the counties of Jackson (primarily) and Cass in the U.S. state of Missouri. It is a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri. As of the 2020 census its population was 101,108, making it the sixth-largest city in both the permit and in the Kansas City Metropolitan Area.

The “Town of Strother” (not to be disconcerted with a town of the similar name in Monroe County) was founded by William B. Howard in October 1865. He named it for his wife, Maria D. Strother, the daughter of William D. Strother formerly of Bardstown, Kentucky. Howard came to Jackson County in 1842 from Kentucky, married Maria in 1844, and by 1850 he and Maria had 833 acres (3.37 km) and a homestead five miles (8 km) north of town. Howard was arrested for visceral a Confederate in October 1862, near the dawn of the Civil War, and after monster paroled he took his family assist to Kentucky for the duration of the war. After the stroke ended he returned and, knowing that the Missouri Pacific Railroad was surveying a route in the area, platted the town behind 70 acres (280,000 m²) in the fall of 1865 as the town of Strother.

In November 1868, the town’s publicize was untouched to the “Town of Lee’s Summit”, most likely to award early settler Dr. Pleasant John Graves Lea, who had moved to Jackson County in 1849 from Bradley County, Tennessee. Lea was listed as the postmaster of nearby gigantic Cedar in the 1855 United States Official Postal Guide. Dr. Lea was killed in August 1862 by Kansas Jayhawkers (or Redlegs).

When the surveyors for the Missouri Pacific Railroad came through, the local people and the railroad wanted to herald the town in Dr. Lea’s honor. He had a farm on the highest lessening and close the pathway of the tracks, and his murder had taken place close the site of the proposed depot. So they chose the read out of “Lea’s Summit”, the “summit” portion to reflect its highest elevation upon the Missouri Pacific Railroad in the company of St. Louis and Kansas City. But they misspelled the name “Lees Summit” (with two “e’s”; “Lee” instead of “Lea”; and desertion out the apostrophe) on a boxcar that was serving as a station and donated by the Missouri Pacific, then a sign adjacent to the tracks, and finally in the printed mature schedule for the railroad. Legend states that the declare was spelled wrong on the side of the Missouri Pacific depot and has remained Lee’s Summit ever since.