Patee House

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John Patee House
National Register of Historic Places
National Historic Landmark
Exterior view of the Patee House in August 2006

Exterior view of the Patee House in August 2006

Patee House, Missouri
Paris plan pointer b jms.svg
location Saint Joseph in Missouri (USA)
Coordinates 39 ° 27 '7.6 "  N , 94 ° 30' 15.1"  W Coordinates: 39 ° 27 '7.6 "  N , 94 ° 30' 15.1"  W.
Built 1858
NRHP number 66000414
Data
The NRHP added October 15, 1966
Declared as an  NHL 5th November 1961

The John Patee House or Patee House Museum was a 140-room luxury hotel on 12th Street and Penn in Saint Joseph , Missouri, completed in 1858 . It was once considered one of the best hotels west of the Mississippi River . On October 15, 1966, it was added to the United States' official list of cultural monuments, the National Register of Historic Places . Five years earlier, on November 5, 1961, it was designated a National Historic Landmark by the US Department of the Interior .

history

The building was constructed in 1858 under the direction of John Patée , who at the time was working on his Patee Town construction project and saw the Patee House , which he began construction in 1856, as part of that project. Patée is working on the infrastructure around the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad , which ran from Hannibal in northeast Missouri to Saint Joseph in the northwest and existed from the mid-1840s to the mid-1880s. In addition, the four-story building, which at the time cost 200,000 US dollars to build, which at the present time (as of 2010) would have been around five to five and a half million dollars, was the headquarters of the short-lived but popular Pony Express . At the same time it was its eastern terminus, whereas the western terminus was in Sacramento in California , more than 3000 km away . After the Pony Express initially used some office space - among other things, the founders William Hepburn Russell , Alexander Majors and William B. Waddell had their main offices in the Patee House - the building was used as the office of the Union Army Provost Marshal in the American Civil War that followed Commander of the military police. From here numerous actions of the war were planned and directed, whereby the room in the ballroom on the second floor was used. At the same time, the red brick building continued to serve as a hotel from its opening until the end of the civil war in 1865, but mostly only for wealthy guests. During this time, Patée, who was believed to be a Confederate supporter , decided to sell his Patee House through a nationwide raffle. However, when this raffle failed and 100 tickets were returned unsold on April 28, 1865, Patée decided to buy up all the tickets himself and thus won back his own hotel, which at that time was still in the hands of the Union Army. The location of the hotel at that time was already troubling Patée, which made it much more difficult for him to pay for the completed hotel. Therefore, after the hotel opened for the first time, stagecoaches went on special trips to earn some extra money. The first guests came mostly from the cities of Liberty , Weston and Hannibal, who was a little further away . As was customary in the Wild West at that time, there was also a railing in front of the hotel intended for hanging horses. One negative point was that the railway terminus was not in the immediate vicinity of the hotel, but a few blocks away, which was the hotel's first financial failure. In addition, all riders of the Pony Express were accommodated in the hotel.

The site where Jesse James was murdered in 1882. On the right in the background behind the trees, the Patee House. (2009)

After the building was used as a school building after the war from 1865 to 1868 and thus provided space for the Patee Female College , it was again in operation as a hotel in the following years until 1872. It was not until 1875 that the Patee House was used again and from that time on it was home to St. Joseph Female College , which only existed until 1881 and was then closed again. The school had close ties to the Baptist Church and, like many other private schools, was part of the expansion of educational facilities for the female population in the post-war period. St. Joseph and the Patee House received special attention in 1882, where the hotel was briefly named the World's Hotel . The reason for this was the murder of the outlaw Jesse James on April 3, 1882 in the immediate vicinity of the hotel in his former house, the now listed Jesse James Home Museum , which today stands on the grounds of the Patee House and was therefore only a few hundred meters offset . In the meantime, it stood in the immediate vicinity of the Belt Highway for a short time before it was brought to the bottom of the Patee House. Exactly 22 years earlier to the day, a cannon was fired in front of the house, which heralded the opening of the Pony Express. After the death of Jesse James, the Patee House served as the site of the investigation into his murder and at the time also served as accommodation for his family, including his wife Zerelda. Until 1883, the hotel, which was previously mostly only known as the Patee Hotel and then briefly ran under the name World's Hotel , served as a hotel and sanatorium for epileptics before it was used by factories for over 80 years as a clothing factory, especially the Shirt production served. From 1885 to 1933 the RL McDonald Factory was the owner of the Patee House, before the Sun Garment Factory succeeded as owner from 1933 to 1953 . After that, the HD Lee Co. briefly operated from 1953 to 1957 in the house in Saint Joseph. During the First and Second World Wars, numerous uniforms for the US Army were also produced here. In the period that followed, the building stood empty, but was also protected as a monument or vandalized by vandals at the same time, who destroyed almost the entire interior.

The also listed Jesse James Home Museum on the grounds of the Patee House. (2006)

After the building was marked as a National Historic Landmark on November 5, 1961 , a museum soon started operating within the walls of the venerable building in 1963 or 1965. The Pony Express Historical Association, which was formed in 1963, was primarily responsible for maintaining the building and preventing it from being demolished. Today the house is considered a museum for communication and transport and houses, among other things, a steam locomotive of the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad from 1860 with an accompanying rail mail car from that time. Passing the Union Star Depot from 1870, you go to the Buffalo Saloon , where you can watch a film with food and drink in a specially built-in Nickelodeon . On the second floor of the building there is a collection of more than 2,000 different perfume flacons and also exhibits such as antique telephones and radios, a wagon shop with a smithy, antique furniture , carriages and sleighs, but also the gallows from the listed Buchanan County Courthouse and Jail . There is also a Ford Model T from the 1920s in the building , as well as other old vehicles (cars, trucks and fire engines), including a racing car from 1921. In the “Blue Room” of the Patee House there is a picture exhibition by George Warfels "Westerners-on-Wood-Art-Collection" with around 40 pictures from the time of Jesse and Frank James .

Architectural style and restoration

When the Patee House, sometimes known as the John Patee House , was designated a National Historic Landmark on November 5, 1961 , the owner of the building was Charles Potter, President of the Pony Express Historical Association . The condition of the building at that time was reported as mediocre and changed (due to the early restorations). When John Patée began construction of the four-story U-shaped building at the foot of a more or less steep slope on Penn Street in 1858, he used red bricks as the basic building material, which are still a striking feature of the former hotel today. The two-story middle section of the Patee House was enclosed on three sides according to the U-shape. The block-sized structure had various balconies shortly after it was built. In addition, there were already stairs over the entire length of the building and there was also an artfully designed dome on the roof of the building. At the time it was designated a National Historic Landmark, the dining room of the Patee House was well-equipped with antique warming tables and the floor was covered with a thick red carpet. After the operation of the hotel was very lucrative until the outbreak of the American Civil War and no major changes were made to the building or the furnishings after it remained as a school or again as a hotel, it was only with the conversion of the Patee House into a shirt and clothing factory made massive cuts in the shape of the building. Numerous modifications were made, including an outbuilding or a factory chimney, and space was created for larger machines. When the building finally became vacant from 1957, the entire facility was continuously destroyed by vandals and burglars over the course of the next five years.

When the Pony Express Historical Association was founded in 1964 , which always took care of the building and rebuilt and restored it, a possible demolition of the building could still be averted. At that time, the building was finally included on the list of National Historic Landmarks to house the main offices of Pony Express founders Russell, Majors and Waddell, the offices of the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad and the office of the Union Army Provost Marshal fetched. In 1966 it was finally included in the National Register of Historic Places. In 1975 the building was partially restored and the dilapidated dome on the roof of the building was also removed. Additional changes were made to the interior of the building, including most of the interior design, but rooms such as the ballroom on the second floor, some original hotel rooms and a staircase were kept in their original condition and restored with approved government funds. While the reconstruction of the stairs on the western side was planned as early as 1975, this work has not been carried out until today (status: 2011) and instead the low, artificially created slope between the street and the building has been left. From the time the museum was founded, admission was free, but this changed in the decades after the major renovations in the 1970s. These renovations also included the demolition of the old attached factory buildings and the old factory chimney or the complete restoration of the outer facade and the porch including the canopy. At the same time, the main entrance was also restored, whereby, among other things, lighter bricks were exposed, which were however retained during the restoration. For a complete restoration in the mid-1970s, numerous details were already worked out on the building. Among other things, the separation between the entablature and the rest of the brick wall or the planned restoration of another balcony. In the past, numerous rows of bricks were also replaced on the outer facade, which also happened before the 1970s. At that time the Jesse James Home Museum was already on the site of the Patee House, but at that time it did not allow any view of the main visitor area in the northeast, which led to the building.

The extreme weather, including numerous snowstorms and blizzards , has a massive impact on the more than 150-year-old walls. Over the years, large parts of the roof were destroyed and had to be rebuilt. This also resulted in larger holes in the roofs, which also affected the artifacts kept on the upper floors. In addition, all wooden parts were damaged and large panes of glass were broken. Furthermore, the Patee House is visited at irregular intervals by vandals who deface the masonry with graffiti .

Sources and web links