Patee House | |
Location | 12th and Penn Sts., St. Joseph, Missouri |
---|---|
Coordinates | 39°45′21.42″N94°50′41.71″W / 39.7559500°N 94.8449194°W |
Built | 1860 |
NRHP reference No. | 66000414 [1] |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | October 15, 1966 |
Designated NHL | November 5, 1961 [2] |
The Patee House, also known as Patee House Museum, was completed in 1858 as a 140-room luxury hotel at 12th Street and Penn in St. Joseph, Missouri. It was one of the best-known hotels west of the Mississippi River. [3]
The Patee House was built by John Patée as part of his Patee Town development around the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad station. Office space included the headquarters and eastern terminus of the Pony Express, founded in 1860 to provide fast overland mail service to the West Coast. During the American Civil War, the Union Army Provost Marshal's office was located in Patee House. The Army conducted war trials in the second floor ballroom.
After the war, the Patee Female College operated in the building from 1865 to 1868. Its space was taken over 1875–1880 by the St. Joseph Female College, founded in affiliation with the Baptist Church. These private schools were part of the postwar expansion of educational facilities for young women across the country.
After outlaw Jesse James was killed in 1882 at his nearby home, his surviving family stayed at the hotel during the investigation of his death. It was then called World's Hotel. Also resident at the hotel within two weeks of James's death was Oscar Wilde who lectured in St. Joseph on April 18, 1882. [4] Later the building was adapted to house the R.L. McDonald shirt factory and other light industrial uses for 80 years.
Since 1963, the building has been operated as a museum of United States history, with an emphasis on transportation. An 1892 Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad steam locomotive and 1877 railroad depot are displayed inside the building.
In 2008 the museum was selected as one of America's Top Ten Western Museums by True West Magazine . It was also listed in 1,000 Places to See in the USA and Canada Before You Die .
The building was designated a National Historic Landmark for its role as the Pony Express headquarters. It marks the eastern terminus of the Pony Express National Historic Trail. The Jesse James Home Museum is located on Patee House grounds. Both are owned and operated by the Pony Express Historical Association, a not-for-profit organization. Both are contributing resources to the Patee Town Historic District. [5]
The Pony Express was an American express mail service that used relays of horse-mounted riders. It operated from April 3, 1860, to October 26, 1861, between Missouri and California. It was operated by the Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Company.
St. Joseph is a city in Andrew and Buchanan counties and the county seat of Buchanan County, Missouri, United States. Located on the Missouri River, it is the principal city of the St. Joseph Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes Buchanan, Andrew, and DeKalb counties in Missouri and Doniphan County, Kansas. As of the 2020 census, St. Joseph had a total population of 72,473, making it the eighth largest city in the state, and the third largest in Northwest Missouri. St. Joseph is located roughly thirty miles north of the Kansas City, Missouri, city limits and approximately 125 miles (201 km) south of Omaha, Nebraska.
Hannibal is a city along the Mississippi River in Marion and Ralls counties in the U.S. state of Missouri. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, the population was 17,312, making it the largest city in Marion County. The bulk of the city is in Marion County, with a tiny sliver in the south extending into Ralls County.
Mount Vernon is a neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland, located immediately north of the city's downtown district. Designated a city Cultural District, it is one of the oldest neighborhoods originally home to the city's wealthiest and most fashionable families. The name derives from Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington, given the original Washington Monument, a massive pillar commenced in 1815 to commemorate the first president of the United States, is the defining feature of the neighborhood.
The Jesse James Home Museum is the house in St. Joseph, Missouri where outlaw Jesse James was living and was gunned down on April 3, 1882, by Robert Ford. It is a one-story, Greek Revival style frame dwelling measuring 24 feet, 2 inches, wide and 30 feet, 4 inches, deep.
The Pony Express Museum is a transport museum in Saint Joseph, Missouri, documenting the history of the Pony Express, the first fast mail line across the North American continent from the Missouri River to the Pacific coast. The museum is housed in a surviving portion of the Pike's Peak Stables, from which westward-bound Pony Express riders set out on their journey.
St. Louis Union Station is a National Historic Landmark and former train station in St. Louis, Missouri. At its 1894 opening, the station was the largest in the world that had tracks and passenger service areas all on one level. Traffic peaked at 100,000 people a day in the 1940s. The last Amtrak passenger train left the station in 1978.
The Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad was the first railroad to cross Missouri starting in Hannibal in the northeast and going to St. Joseph, Missouri, in the northwest. It is said to have carried the first letter to the Pony Express on April 3, 1860, from a train pulled behind the locomotive Missouri.
Patee Town Historic District is a national historic district located at St. Joseph, Missouri. The district encompasses 71 contributing buildings and 1 contributing site in the Patee Town section of St. Joseph. It developed between about 1858 and 1939, and includes representative examples of Greek Revival and Italianate style architecture. Located in the district are the separately listed Patee House, a hotel that is a U.S. National Historic Landmark, and Jesse James House. Other notable buildings include the Morey Piro House (1910), Charles E. Herycele House (1903), R. L. McDonald Manufacturing Co. Warehouse (1899), Mrs. Pemetia Cornish Duplex, Fred Wenz Store Building (1903), Fire Station #5 (1939), German Salems Church, and Matthew Ziebold House (1895).
Mount Mora Cemetery is the oldest public cemetery in St. Joseph, Missouri. Among those who are buried in the cemetery are three governors, a U.S. senator, soldiers from both sides in the American Civil War and riders of the Pony Express. In October 2006, several headstones including that of Missouri governor Silas Woodson were damaged by vandals.
The Pony Express Terminal, also known as the B. F. Hastings Bank Building, is a historic commercial building at 1000 2nd Street in Sacramento, California. Built in 1852, it was the western endpoint of the Pony Express from 1860 to 1861, the period of the service's operation. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1966. It now houses a museum dedicated to the history of Wells Fargo, and is part of Old Sacramento State Historic Park, itself a National Historic Landmark District.
St. Joseph Female College was a private women's college located in St. Joseph, Missouri, United States.
The St. Louis Mercantile Library, founded in 1846 in downtown St. Louis, Missouri, was originally established as a membership library, and is the oldest extant library west of the Mississippi River. Since 1998 the library has been housed at the University of Missouri-St. Louis as a Special Collections library within the Thomas Jefferson Library. The majority of library materials can be assigned to one of four categories: the General (Core) Collection, the John W. Barriger Railroad Library, the Herman T. Pott National Inland Waterways Library, or the Art Museum. The collections of the St. Louis Mercantile Library have been named a City Landmark by the city of St. Louis, Mo., due to the cultural significance of the library.
The Robidoux School is a historic school building located at 201 South 10th in St. Joseph, Missouri. It was the first building used by what would become Missouri Western State University. The first high school in St. Joseph was built on the site in 1866. In 1895 the high school moved to 13th and Patee and the building was remodeled to be a grammar school named after St. Joseph founder Joseph Robidoux. In 1907 the building was razed and architect Edmond Jacques Eckel and Walter Boschen was commissioned to design the new Classical Revival style building which opened in 1909 at a cost of $130,000 including contents. It included 12 classrooms and an auditorium seating 1,100. In 1914, the building was used as a freshman annex for Central High School. In 1919 it became the Robidoux Polytechnic High School, a vocational trade school. In 1933 it became home for the St. Joseph Junior College which had been founded in 1915 and was earlier operating out of Central High School. The move occurred at the same time as the Central High School moved to its current location. In 1965 the Junior College became a four-year Missouri Western State College. In 1969 the college moved to its current location on the east side of St. Joseph. This school is not to be confused with the current Robidoux Middle School at 4212 St. Joseph Avenue.
A Mississippi Landmark is a building officially nominated by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History and approved by each county's chancery clerk. The Mississippi Landmark designation is the highest form of recognition bestowed on properties by the state of Mississippi, and designated properties are protected from changes that may alter the property's historic character. Currently there are 890 designated landmarks in the state. Mississippi Landmarks are spread out between eighty-one of Mississippi's eighty-two counties; only Issaquena County has no such landmarks.
The Pony Express was a U.S. mail service that operated from April 1860 to October 1861.
The Old Mauch Chunk Historic District is a national historic district located at Jim Thorpe, Carbon County, Pennsylvania.
Edmond J. Eckel was an architect in practice in St. Joseph, Missouri, from 1872 until his death in 1934. In 1880 he was the founder of Eckel & Mann, later Eckel & Aldrich and Brunner & Brunner, which was the oldest architectural firm in Missouri prior to its eventual dissolution in 1999.