The site where Mission now sits was once a rest stop for wagons moving westward on the Santa Fe Trail during the 19th century. The clear spring water rising to the surface in present-day Mission made it an ideal place to collect drinking water for horses and travelers. For years the area was owned as a homestead by the Breyfogel family, who subdivided their land into 245 lots and sold them off in the early 20th century. The town grew up slowly in the 1920s and 1930s, benefiting from its close proximity to Kansas City, Missouri. After World War II however, the town grew rapidly amid the post-war housing boom, as young families from Kansas City purchased their first homes.