Celebrating National Historic Districts & Places That Matter

Ready for a History Treasure Hunt?? Test your skills and have fun with your team.

HMP celebrated Historic Preservation Month this May with a History Treasure Hunt! The hunt was inspired by Joshua Shackles book“The Explorer’s Club”

HMP Mission: To promote, educate and preserve the integrity of historic properties throughout the Murphysburg District and Joplin.

HMP Vision: To help the people who live and visit our community understand how history shapes, inspires, and informs the present. To help the District remain a historic community that is beautiful, inviting, inclusive and safe for our neighbors to live and visitors to explore.

First Place “Team Fischer”
Second Place “Team Zerkel”
Third Place “Team Box”

Winners had to check in at 11 locations to win! Our winners showed up approximately within 30 minutes of one another, taking about 3 to 3 1/2 hours to finish. Good work!!!

Want to learn about Joplin’s existing treasures and some that were lost. Take the tour on your own below.

Stay tuned for more fun events Murphysburg has coming up.

2nd Annual Murphysburg Treasure Hunt. Take the challenge!

  1. Where city fathers sleep in rows A miner’s stone keeps quiet score. He lost to history’s winning woman, Yet built the house that came before. ANSWER

2. Before the park, before the fame, The Creekside glasses filled with cheer. A German fortune found its roots,  Where mining money flowed like beer. ANSWER

 3. Two men dug down and struck a spark, That split the valley into two. Before the mansions, courts, and streets, The buried gray began to view. ANSWER

 4. A merchants home on Sergeant stands, With faith and fabric interlaced. Seek the corner fire where art looks back, And temple dreams were first embraced. ANSWER

5. The mothers road once took a bend, Where travelers stopped for food and flame. Before the clippers claimed the pumps 
A lucky leaf sold gas by name. ANSWER

6. A lawyers name, a bankers rise,
A mansion born of boomtown gain, From family halls to sacred work, Its walls have changed, but still remain. ANSWER

7. Where Joplin fought to hold the law, A stone recalls the county’s pride. A crowd once marched, the towers rose, Then smoke and fire took all inside. ANSWER

8. Not the mansion, but near its shade, A gardener kept the grounds in line. He crossed from servant into kin, And managed wealth of lead and vine. ANSWER

 9. Before the rival town was one,
An eastern founder marked his claim. Across the creek from Murphy’s dream, His spring-fed plan preserved the name. ANSWER

10. Find the city’s maker of stone and line, Who shaped the skyline, school and prayer. His final room still holds its form,  Among the gardens high in air. ANSWER

Our event was sponsored by: Thank you for your dedication to HMP’s preservation efforts.

United Hebrew Congregation 

There has been a Jewish presence in the Joplin area longer than Joplin has existed, with the first arriving during the 1860s. Early Jewish settlers of the area were shopkeepers, business people, and executives and managers in the mines, who settled here to take advantage of the Tri-State area’s lead and zinc mining boomtown opportunities. Jewish area residents met in local churches to worship during these early years.

Property at the corner of Seventh Street and Sergeant Avenue was purchased from Aaron Haughton of Corpus Christi, Texas, a Mason and former Joplin resident for $6,000 ($124,695 todays equivalent). In September 1916, contractors Dieter and Wenzel received the building permit. The synagogue was completed later in 1917 through the generous efforts of Jewish residents of Joplin, Pittsburg, Galena, Webb City, Carterville, Carthage and New York City. The final cost of the building was $35,000, which about $727,390 today.

The United Hebrew Congregation of Joplin was formally organized in 1911 with planning and fundraising efforts for a permanent synagogue accelerating in the subsequent years. Joplin Rabbi Joseph Leiser called for a building worthy of the Jewish citizens – one that will be an ornament to the city and be acceptable to all citizens of this district, not merely to the particular worshippers.

One of the United Hebrew Congregation founding members, Gabriel Newburger, is credited with the inspiration of the temple’s architecture after bringing back his sketches of the magnificent Hagia Sophia, which is now a museum and is located in current day Istanbul, Turkey. Mr. Newburger was accompanied on this trip by his brother-in-law and business partner Solomon Newman, Sr. By 1910, Sol, his brother Albert Newman and their father Joseph Newman together with Gabe were all part of Newman Mercantile Company in Joplin.

Newspaper accounts touted the yet-to-be completed structure as a Byzantine-style building with Oriental trimmings and along the lines of a Hebrew temple and a Turkish mosque. The Oriental look was in vogue in Joplin around this time and examples of it could be seen in Schifferdecker Electrical Park’s Moorish entrance and towers (circa 1901-1914). The interior Oriental-style lobby was similar to the Turkish baths at the Elks Club Lodge (circa 1904).

October 1916 witnessed the Masonic cornerstone laying ceremony, which was attended by 600 people, to include every member of UHC, 225 Masons and visitors from the surrounding area. It was a gala event including speeches delivered by Rabbi Leiser and congregation president Morris Scherl.

Joplin First Church

Many times the most impressive structures in a city are its churches. Their outlines grace the city’s skyline
and their steeples stretch up to meet the clouds.

 First United Methodist Church has been part of the fabric of the community that bears his name since the Reverend Harris G. Joplin, a Methodist circuit rider, made his way to the edge of the frontier back in the 1830’s and planted a congregation among the folks who had settled here. As the community grew so did we. In 1905 we opened the doors to a new house of worship at the corner of 4th and Byers Avenue, and those doors are still open today. 

Architects Charles Garstang and Alfred Rea designed the majestic entrance that features a triple arched portico entry with a large stained glass window above. Romanesque pillars with Corinthian-style capitals support the load of Gothic arches and two bell towers flank the grand entry. The steeple on the southwest rose 100 feet tall in the air before lighting struck in 1963. The cornerstone for the church was laid in 1905 and the first service was held in the congregations new home on June 3, 1906.

Saint Peter the Apostle Catholic Church

Austin Allen looked to the Gothic Revival style for inspiration in this $60,000 masterpiece,
which is about $1,800,000 today. Appropriately enough, elements of this style—the pointed
arches, buttresses, and spires—all symbolize heavenward movement. 
 
Rich and poor, Catholics and Protestants enthusiastically contributed to the effort of building
Joplin’s first Roman Catholic church.

The rough-faced Carthage limestone is laid in regular courses of alternating wide and narrow
rows. A steel frame supports the steeply pitched slate roof and vaulted ceiling; therefore, the

wall buttresses are merely decorative. The primary facade has three arched entry ways. The
largest, in the center, features a beautiful rose window with a cross-topped spire above it. Finials
arise from each corner of the facade towers.
 
The Joplin Daily Globe published a full-page spread on Sunday, November 24, 1907 stating the
edifice “was regarded as the handsomest structure within the limits of the town of Joplin and was
pointed to with pride by every loyal citizen.”