Heartland View

Issue date: 12/6/07 Section: Travel and Leisure

Media Credit: Brittany Zegers A one stop historical experience is available in St. Joseph, Mo.

Media Credit: Brittany Zegers This museum also served as the headquarters for the short-lived Pony Express.

The Patee House Museum began life as a luxury hotel in 1858, with four floors and 180 guest rooms full of history. Over the years, the building has been a hotel three times, and it has also served as a sanitarium, a girls' college and a shirt factory.

Located in downtown St. Joseph, Mo., the building became a museum in 1963. The house where Jesse James was shot is located behind the hotel and the Patee House is where James' family stayed for the funeral. Patee House was the headquarters for the Pony Express during its single year of operation.

The Patee House Museum takes up an entire city block and is crammed full of historical oddities and fascinating things, including an 1860 Hannibal & St. Joseph locomotive and railway mail car invented to speed the mail on the Pony Express and an 1877 railroad station. There is a display about Aunt Jemima pancake mix, which was created in St. Joseph.

In another room, the dentist's office of Dr. Walter Cronkite, father of the news commentator, is open for visitors, while another doorway leads into an old time saloon where visitors can grab a sarsaparilla and listen to a nickelodeon.

An antique toy shop holds a miniature Ferris wheel and carousel that kids can operate, while a 1920s service station hosts a Model-T Ford, a 1921 race car and other antique cars and trucks.

There's far too much to see at Patee House to catch everything in one trip. It makes a good destination to check into every so often just to see what you missed the last time through.

The museum is open Mon.-Sat., 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. from April-October. Sunday 1 p.m.-5 p.m. Please call to verify weekend hours at 816.232.6482. General admission is $3.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools