Overland Park is the second most populous city in the U.S. state of Kansas. Located in Johnson County, it is also the second most populous city in the Kansas City metropolitan area. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 173,372. The city traces its roots to 1905, with the arrival of its founder, William B. Strang Jr., who plotted subdivisions along a military roadway on 600 acres he purchased that are now part of the old downtown area. One of those subdivisions was named Overland Park, and was the site for the first airplane flight west of the Mississippi with shows by the Wright brothers, sponsored by Strang, on December 24, 1909.