Missouri Western State University - Griffon Yearbook (St Joseph, MO)

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The Victorian Era touched St. Joseph, tleftj with its symbolic suggestions of virtue and goodness. This ornamentation from a house on Hall Street implies the wrath of Satan on souls lost. St. Joseph City Hall fcenterj stands as the nucleus of St. Joseph's Democracy. Erected under President Franklin D. Roosevelt Ad- ministration's WPA, this monumental struc- ture contributes to the ambiance of St. Joseph's downtown district. The Buchanan County Courthouse flower lefty currently under renovation, highlights a ma- jestic skyline encompassing years of progress. The Missouri Theater flower righti designated this year as a historic landmark, reveals the sentimentality of years past in both decor and grandeur. ,H,,,,,,,.,.4. . -f 'E 00.-' U1 3 Q

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Salute to St. Joseph Ten years ago - August 1, 1969, to be specific - Dr. M.O. Looney moved into a sparsely furnished office in the Frank E. Popplewell Administration building on the unsuliied cam- pus of Missouri Western College, making a permanent mark on the tabloids of history. A decade later - a mere grain of sand on the limitless desert of time - we celebrate the 10th anniversary of Missouri Western State College. But the history of this institu- tion of higher learning is still a young one, not yet developed into the mass of torrid tales and wonderful whoppers that lurk in the shadows of the town that Missouri Western calls home - St. Joseph, Missouri, U.S.A. While our campus was still woodlands, probably teeming William Clark and Meriwether Lewis passed by on their expedition to the Pacific Ocean. lt was in that 1804-06 trek, so soon after, that the land that is now St. Joseph was named Blacksnake Hills. Then, in 1826, a young man from St. Louis, following the best road through the Missouri wilderness - the Missouri River - jumped ashore at the foot of those same Blacksnake Hills, and the history of St. Joseph was set in mo- tion. His name was Joseph Robidoux, a man of powerful dreams and endless vision as a city of with indians, My history is an everlasting possession, not a prize composition which is heard and forgotten. -THUCYDIDES the growing United States of America. The history books will tell you that the city was named for Robidoux's patron saint, and most will agree. Others, however, will give a slightly different opinion that this man of powerful dreams wasn't getting enough sleep, and in a fit of restless passion, may have named the city after himself - the city's saintly founder. But, as Matthew Arnold said, On the breast of that huge Mississippi of falsehood called history, a foam-bell more or less is of no conse- quencef' Three years after the city's establishment, Flobidoux and other members of the local citizenry incorporated the Hannibal 81 St. Joseph Railroad, and on February 14, 1859, the first train from the east arrived in St. Joseph. Unfortunately, there wasn't a bridge across the Big Mud- dy. Commercially speaking, this would hurt St. Joseph in the years to come, for she was far ahead of Omaha and Kansas City in growth at the time, and had a good advantage of being an impor- tant link in the growth of the transcontinental railroad. St. Joseph would have its railroad days, but never to the extent of its expanding neighbors to the north and south. But every cloud has a silver lining. An old cliche, of course-but St. Joseph's silver lining made the young city the point of national atten- tion on a special day in the April of 1860. It was about 6:15 on the evening of April 3, 1860, when young Johnnie Fry, weighing just un- der 120 pounds, sopping wet, mounted his horse at Samuel Owens Jerome's barn on the west side of Main, between Jule and Faraon. Jerome gave the horse a slap on the rear and BEN WEDDLE A land without ruins is a land without memories is a land with history. -ABRAM JOSEPH RYAN

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Salute toSt. Joseph icomag Johnnie rode off into the sunset and history, cheered on by hundreds of joyful onlookers. J. B. Moss was on hand that evening-a mere boy of ten years. Moss was also on hand April 20, 1940-eighty years and 17 days later, when St. Joseph unveil- ed an everlasting tribute to a piece of American heritage and St. Joseph pride. Five-year-old Jessamine Wallace pulled the cord that revealed the 7,200 pound bronze monument to the crowd. They responded with a deafening cheer that might have rattled the win- dow panes in the nearby City Hall. The Pony Express Memorial was described on the front page of the next day's St. Joseph News-Press: The scarf over the rider's horse served to keep dust from his nostrils in his gallop across the plains, and the mail was attached to a mochlla, a leather square thrown from one horse to another in the relay race with time. The bronze weight is taken care of by a support that suggests the mountains to be crossed, the sage brush and alkali desert. On one side is the sun and on the other the moon, symbolizing the ride that continued day and night. The statue was designed by Herman A. MacNeil, a nationally acknowledged and highly awarded sculptor, who described to perfection the strength and tenacity of the riders that brav- ed every element of nature to carry a few cherished letters from the East to the West at Sacramento, California. Although the venture was short lived, ending October 24 of the following year - due to the advancement of direct wire communication - the statue in the Civic Center triangle stands as a constant reminder of our frontier past. Less than two years before he became presi- dent, a little known Abraham Lincoln visited St. Joseph, where rumor has it he had a shave at the Patee House Hotel. Lincoln was the first of a long line of famous Americans to walk the streets of St. Joseph. With the coming of the Civil War, citizens of St. Joseph learned too well such infamous names Upon this point a page of history is worth a volume of logic . -OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES JR. as William Quantrill, Cole Younger and, perhaps, St. Joseph's most famous citizen, Jesse James. A number of towns in the area still claim some relationship to Jesse, whether it be birthplace, stomping grounds or place of burial. But St. Joseph has one connection with the famous James boy that we are dead sure nobody else can claim - April 3, 1828, the outlaw Jesse ,....., ,, 1 Nestled in a- serene setting, the St. Joseph State Hospital offers the first in psychiatric treatment for St. Joseph and area residents James was shot and killed in his home near 14th and Lafayette in St. Joseph, Missouri. But all of St. Joseph's residents weren't like Jesse. As a state, Missouri can claim Mark Twain and Harry Truman among others, and Walter Cronkite is one of St. Joseph's own, with more famous names to sprout up to notariety as time marches on. 0 Besides the anniversary of Missouri Western, 1979 also marks the anniversary of the railroad in St. Joseph. It was 120 years ago that the Han- nibal 8t St. Joseph Railroad line first pulled into town, marking many years of limitless progress for St. Joseph. The rail was the most powerful means ot transportation for many years, and as the rails spread, so spread the cities that it touched. A1 the height of the St. Joseph railroad era in 1929, as many as 90 passenger trains a day pulled into the Union Station at 6th and Monterey. During the years between the end of the Civil War and the Depression of the 1930s, St. Joseph grew and prospered faster and greater than al any other time in its history. The downtown area was filled with quality hotels, theatres and restaurants. Great mansions, some of which still remain on the outskirts of the business district, were erected in all their Victorian splendor. It was the Gilded Age, and business was king. On October 1, 1884, John J. Sheridan and Alvah Patee Clayton opened their small business at 516-18 Francis Street. The Sheridan-Clayton Paper Co. grew quickly, as did the Western Tablet St Stationery Co., which by