 Wood, and the couple moved to Kansas City, Missouri and then Chicago, Illinois, where Arthur sold insurance for the Travelers Insurance Company, inventing a coupon annuity life-insurance policy which paid the policy holder an income after a certain age.With the money made selling these policies, the Stilwells returned to Kansas City where Arthur sold real estate and began building the Kansas City Suburban Belt Railway.In his quest to connect Kansas City to the Gulf of Mexico by rail, he began building and acquiring rail lines for the Kansas City, Pittsburg and Gulf Railroad Company (later to become the Kansas City Southern Railroad), plotting townsites along the way which included Mena, Arkansas, Stilwell, Oklahoma, Port Arthur, Texas, and many more.