Photo by Unknown, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.5)
Upcoming Events
No ticketed events are currently listed for Patee House Museum. Many heritage operators publish schedules seasonally or run on regular open hours instead of dated events.
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About Patee House Museum
Step into a National Historic Landmark hotel, completed in 1858 with 140 rooms, that once housed the headquarters and eastern terminus of the Pony Express. Today its galleries form a museum of United States history with a transportation emphasis — an 1892 Hannibal and St. Joseph steam locomotive and an 1877 railroad depot sit right inside the building — while the Jesse James Home Museum waits on the grounds outside.
History
Completed in 1858, the 140-room luxury hotel at 12th Street and Penn in St. Joseph, Missouri, was the anchor John Patee built for his Patee Town development beside the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad station, and it became one of the best-known hotels west of the Mississippi River. Its office space served as the Pony Express headquarters — the service's eastern terminus — when that fast overland mail line to the West Coast was founded in 1860, and during the Civil War the Union Army Provost Marshal's office occupied the building while war trials were conducted in the second-floor ballroom. The Patee Female College operated there from 1865 to 1868, followed by the St. Joseph Female College from 1875 to 1880. After Jesse James was killed at his nearby home in 1882, his surviving family stayed at the hotel — by then called World's Hotel — and Oscar Wilde lectured in St. Joseph that same April. The building later spent roughly 80 years as the R.L. McDonald shirt factory and other light industrial space before opening in 1963 as a museum of United States history run by the not-for-profit Pony Express Historical Association, which also operates the Jesse James Home Museum on the grounds. Designated a National Historic Landmark for its Pony Express role, the building is the eastern endpoint of the Pony Express National Historic Trail.
Nearby
St. Joseph rises along the Missouri River in northwest Missouri, roughly thirty miles north of Kansas City. Founded by French Canadian fur trader Joseph Robidoux and incorporated in 1843, it outfitted westbound wagon trains as a famed jumping-off point and in 1860 became an endpoint of the Pony Express; outlaw Jesse James met his end here in 1882. Today visitors find the Pony Express Museum, the Jesse James Home Museum, the Glore Psychiatric Museum, and a nationally known 26-mile parkway system threading the city's parks.
Where to Stay
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