Midwest Photos 6

Day three and it is north from Kansas City to the birthplace of the Pony Express, St. Joseph, Missouri. I think the Pony Express Motel is long gone, but this great old sign remains.
In this building is the Pony Express Museum. It used to be the St. Joseph stables for the Central Overland California & Pikes Peak Express Company, aka Pony Express.
This is exactly what it looked like when Johnny Fry left out on the first Pony Express ride on the evening of April 3, 1860. Why would you doubt me?
This is a hand-dug well built around 1859 used to supply water for the horses at the stable.
The well was no longer needed after 1880 when city water was piped into the building.
There isn't much to this museum really, but there is an exhibit in the back devoted to Buffalo Bill Cody. After all, he was once a rider for the Pony Express. These are a pair of boots he wore in one of his appearances in St. Joseph.
You have to love these old show posters. No really, you have to. It's the law.
Not too far away is the Patee House hotel. When I got out of my car I was surprised to see this seemingly out of place building next door. It is a Japanese tea house built in 1917. It was not originally located here. It was relocated in 1985.
The Patee House was built in 1858 and would have been fairly new when it was the headquarters for the Pony Express from 1860 to 1861.
Checking in?
Some old stuff from the hotel. There is part of the carpet, silverware, an ink bottle and a bottle of Dr. Richmond's Nervine Medicine which was bottled in the building in 1881. They said it was useful in the treatment of epilepsy and nervous diseases. Sure it was.
I have no idea if this is what the office of the Pony Express looked like this, but I also have no reason to doubt it.
The Patee House Museum has a little bit of everything. There are recreations of shops and businesses from the streets of 19th century St. Joseph, a train, an old carousel and lots of antiques. I'll bet you didn't know that Aunt Jemima pancake mix originated in St. Joseph. This is the cover of some sheet music for "The Aunt Jemima Slide" written in 1917, complete with ridiculous stereotypical black characters of the time.
The von Trapps came to St. Joseph in 1942. There were Johanna, Agathe, Maria, Martina, Hedwig, Werner, Rupert and of course the Baroness Maria von Trapp.
A 1921 Model T Ford pickup and pair of American Eagle gas pumps from the 1920's and 30's. I told you this place has a little bit of everything.
Hey, hey, easy kids. Everybody in the car. Boat leaves in two minutes... or perhaps you don't want to see the second largest ball of twine on the face of the earth, which is only four short hours away?
This was once a hotel after all and they do have some exhibits of that. This is a ladies' parlor, complete with a red fainting couch.
I think this is supposed to be where the gentlemen would relax and smoke cigars.
For a quarter century from 1858 to 1883, the hotel ballroom hosted dances for Pony Express riders as well as Civil War trials where convicted men were hanged across the street. For another 75 years the room served as a place of production for the Sun Garment Company, producing shirts, overalls and uniforms for soldiers during WWII.
The Blue Room was the hotel dining room in the early years of the hotel.
Jesse James was shot and killed in this house on April 3, 1882. His family stayed and were interviewed at the Patee House following his death. This house was not originally located here, but it was only about a block away.
I would guess that while he lived here Jesse James didn't have a great big portrait of himself on the wall.
After the James Gang (the criminal gang, not the band that Joe Walsh was part of) was nearly destroyed in 1876, Jesse formed a new gang with the Ford brothers, Charley and Robert. He asked them to move in with him. That was probably not the best idea Jesse ever had.
You see, the Fords had a better idea than robbing. On April 3, 1882, Jesse noticed that a picture was crooked on the wall so he stood on a chair to fix it. That is when Robert Ford shot him in the back of the head for the reward money.
This was Jesse and his wife's bedroom. The furniture is not the James'. That was auctioned off to raise money for his wife, who was also his cousin, by the way.
I have no idea if this belonged to Jesse James or one of the Fords, but who would not want to own a bawdy boot jack shaped like a nude woman with her legs spread apart?