Patee House / Pony Express Headquarters...St. Joseph, Missouri

DATE:  October 9, 2015

HISTORICAL SITE:  Patee House

LOCATION:  1202 Penn St., St Joseph, Buchanan Co., Missouri   64503

MARKER #:  66000414

DEDICATED:  October 15, 1966

Patee House Hotel   1858

Pony Express Headquarters in 1860

National Pony Express Centennial Association Trail Marker

National Historic Landmark

 In Search of The Pony Express * Station Marker

Patee House

Company and Division Headquarters

Apr. 3, 1860 – Sep. 13, 1861

Original Station

Apr. 3, 1860 – Nov. 20, 1861

MARKER PLACED BY:  U. S. Dept. of the Interior National Park Service

PERSONAL REFLECTIONS: 

Dirk and I were looking for the Pony Express Museum. Being from Sacramento, which is the end of the pony express route, I really wanted to see the beginning.

We walked into the building listed as the sight and there was an indoor merry go round. We told them we weren’t interested and walked around the block. On another street we saw an entrance to a museum and went in….to the other side of the same building.

But this time there was so much to take in that we decided to stay and look around. This was indeed the Pony Express Museum, but it was sooo much more than that.

This place is crammed full of stuff and for a lot of it, there is no rhyme or reason to the displays. It’s not like they are by age or subject or whatever. There’s just a lot! Even before we were finished looking around, I realized that I really wasn’t sure how I was going to write this blog…There’s just stuff and it’s everywhere! Officially it says that the museum is a “transportation and communications” museum, and while that’s true, it’s also an “everything and the kitchen sink” museum.

Built at a cost of $180,000.00, the Patee House was a 140 room luxury hotel in the 19^th century. It’s 4 stories tall and boasted of gas lights, running water and flush toilets. Although the museum only takes up the 1^st and 2^nd floors, it’s an entire city block…again, lots of room, for lots of stuff.

This building has been many things in its 160 year history..hotel, headquarters for the Pony Express, the Union Army’s Provost Marshal, court for war trials, female college, shirt factory, and museum.

1858 to 1865: Patee Hotel opens. Pretty much destined to be a financial failure from the start; John Patee was assured the railroad terminal would be located very near but instead was built several blocks away. That didn’t mean the horse rails weren’t loaded up but it was more locals than anything else and it just couldn’t get off the ground.

The hotel was a haven for east-west travel. For those traveling east, it was the first hotel with the “luxuries” the states had that the frontier did not and for those traveling west, it was the last hotel with those luxuries before the hardships of the frontier.

1860: Russell, Majors & Waddell established the St. Joseph office of the Central Overland & Pikes Peak Express Companies…aka, the Pony Express.

On April 3, 1860, at the sound of a cannon being shot in front of the hotel, one of the pony express riders left the stables a couple of blocks away and gallop through town at full speed and out in the direction of Kansas.

Riders would pick up the mail from a door by the northwest corner of the building and ride the approximately 2,000 miles to Sacramento carrying the nation’s mail. Riders had to be small and horses were rode hard for about 10 miles before the rider would jump onto another horse to continue the journey. In this way, mail would make it to California in about 10 days; crucial now that so many people had gone west in search of gold. This was the fastest mail was being delivered anywhere in the world and although the service really only lasted about a year, it captured the imagination of Americans and has loomed large in our historical psyche since.

1861: Civil war breaks out and Missouri is divided. President Lincoln asks for recruits and a pro-southern group cuts down the American flag from the Post Office. The importance of the railroad was recognized early and the Union army occupied St. Joseph within weeks of the wars outbreak. 

The 4^th floor held the Union Army Provost and recruiting offices and war trials were held in the ballroom on the 2^nd floor.

Just because the town was occupied, did not mean things quieted down. Finally, martial law was declared over local law and was kept that way until the end of the war.

In October of 1861, confederate “bushwhackers” weakened the lower part of the Platte River Railroad Bridge to the point that when a westbound train began to cross, it collapsed and the train with its freight cars, baggage car, mail car and passenger cars plunged into the river. At least 17 died and over 100 were injured. St. Joseph didn’t have a hospital so the injured were brought to the hotel. 

Union soldiers were ordered to arrest and execute the bushwhackers while a Union General protested that the bushwhackers should be considered “prisoners of war” since the attack would be considered lawful and proper under the rules of warfare. The bushwhackers claimed it was a legitimate target as there were Union soldiers onboard…although most passengers, in reality, were civilians.

Once the union took over the hotel, Patee, being a southern sympathizer and backing the confederacy, decided to sell the hotel in a lottery. Each ticket was $2 and when over 100 tickets went unsold, he bought them himself and basically won back his own hotel.

1865 to 1868: Patee Female College (Methodist).

1869 to 1872: Patee Hotel again.

1875 to 1880: St. Joseph Female College (Baptist).

1882: Outlaw Jesse James was killed at his house two blocks away and his family was brought to the hotel while the investigation went on. The house, with bullet hole intact, has been moved to the museum lot in order to preserve it. (We didn’t get to tour the home as we only had 20 minutes before it closed and they were charging a separate admission)

1881 to 1883: World’s Hotel and Epileptic Sanatorium.      

1885 to 1933: RL McDonald Factory (shirt factory)

1933 to 1953: HD Lee Company. During WWI and WWII, millions of army uniforms were made here.

1957 to 1963: Vacant with vandals ruining the inside.

1963: The Pony Express Historical Association. Credited with saving the building.

1965 to present (major restoration in 1975): Patee House Museum

Oh, and finally, the merry go round that we weren’t interested in at the beginning, ends up being quite beautiful with hand carved and hand painted animals.