The Oliver Shepard Picher House

Story

210 South Sergeant Avenue · circa 1904 · Colonial/Classical Revival · Architect: Austin Allen

The Picher name has long been associated with Joplin’s mining history. In 1875, Judge Oliver Hazard “O.H.” Picher (formerly 204 S. Moffet) and his brother William (421 S. Sergeant) organized the Picher Lead and Zinc Co. and in 1887 acquired the Lone Elm Mining and Smelting Company. Judge Picher’s son, Oliver Shepard Picher, succeeded his father as president of the company in 1909. The company merged with Eagle Lead in 1916 and today is known as Eagle-Picher Co. In 1904, Oliver married Emily Stanton.

Oliver Shepard Picher

Emily Irish Stanton Picher

The interior of the house is the picture of elegance with high wainscoting, stained glass windows, crystal chandeliers, vaulted ceilings, six fireplaces, servant’s dumbwaiter and a grand staircase. The exterior also features a colonnaded porch, modillions, Roman Doric columns and more. The windows vary from symmetrical bays, angled bays, tripartite and fanlight.

Built in 1904, Oliver S. Picher’s stately Colonial Adam style home features an entry portico and side porches. The portico’s smooth Roman Doric columns support a balustraded balconet and the ceiling is the traditional color, sky blue. It was a custom of the day to paint the porch ceiling blue to mimic the sky and thus keep birds and wasps from building their nests there.

Oliver and Emily Picher

Oliver Shepard Picher (1875–1920) graduated from Stanford University and Columbia University Law School in 1901. After working for a prominent New York City attorney, he returned to Joplin in 1904 and opened his own law firm before eventually joining his father’s company.

After his death, Painters Magazine described him as “an accountant, metallurgist, a mining engineer, a lawyer, a chemist, a manufacturer, a financier” whose personality won thousands of friends in business and technical circles. He died of double pneumonia at his home in Winnetka, Illinois.

Oliver and Emily Stanton Picher (1877–1941) had four children. After Oliver’s death, Emily lived for a time in Hubbard Woods, Illinois. The Joplin Sunday Globe society page recorded several informal social courtesies extended to her during a 1937 visit to Joplin. Friends and former neighbors hosted dinner and luncheon parties at the Sagmount Inn in Saginaw, Missouri, and in private homes. A friend also hosted a fish fry at a lodge near Riverton, Kansas.

Architectural Details

The colonnaded porch on the south elevation has a screened-in second story. A gabled dormer and flanking arched dormers rise from the east roof slope. The second-story balcony has square wood piers and a turned wood balustrade. Small oval leaded-glass windows appear on the second story, and a hitching post stands in the parkway.

A porch with Doric columns projects from the center of the primary east elevation. The first story has historic tripartite windows with a fanlight above.

Photographs and Historical Illustrations