Celebrating National Historic Districts & Places That Matter

HISTORIC MURPHYSBURG PRESERVATION, INC. (HMP)

2023  ACCOMPLISHMENTS & ACTIVITIES

JANUARY :  For an understanding of the future, look to the past

Continued the distribution of the coloring book, Coloring JOMO: Women Who Made Their Mark, walking tour brochures, and hand illustrated maps.  Continued research on original and or significant owners of Murphysburg houses.  Received Visit Joplin (formerly known as Joplin Convention & Visitors Bureau) grant funding for HMP website updates. 

MARCH: Bring to light often overlooked history

HMP promoted Women’s History Month by featuring two (unrelated) women that lived at 101 N. Sergeant in the early 1940s to late 1950s.  Mary Kirk Kelly, as a professor at Joplin Junior College, started Model United Nations for students.  They would travel to regional and national simulations which continues today; after retirement she became an internationally known ceramic artist.  Dora Kneeland invented what came to be known as Williams Chili Seasoning and her son-in-law produced it in the garage before moving the operation to Webb City

Mary Kirk Kelly

APRIL: We envisioned new projects 

Completed research on the Pearl Brothers House (101 S. Moffet) and requested a local historic marker sign.  Continued advocacy for the rehabilitation or abatement of apartments at 117-121 S. Byers (built in May 1950) through direct conversations with Tyler Casey with ProX Management and City officials.  Represented HMP at the Spring meeting of Missouri Route 66 Association and the Visit Joplin Tourism Connection regional meeting.

MAY: Bring awareness to underrepresented communities

Partnered with Downtown Joplin Alliance’s Loft Tour.  Presentation to City Council asking for historic street name signs.  Provided Mt. Hope Cemetery with QR codes for 50 original Murphysburg residents interred at the cemetery.  Staffed a booth at DJA’s Third Thursday.

JUNE: The impact you helped make possible

Represented HMP at the annual Missouri Preservation Conference held in Joplin.

JULY: We advocated for

Partnered with the Scottish Rite Cathedral to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the building.

AUGUST : Promote heritage tourism

Facilitated a feature story & photographs of Murphysburg walking tour in the 417 Magazine.

OCTOBER: Benefitting from new energy

Hosted the annual membership appreciation meeting at the Cornell Complex with guest speaker Neely Meyers, Science Center Creative Learning Alliance director.

NOVEMBER: Home for the holidays…in Murphysburg

Installed Christmas Wreaths on Murphysburg District utility poles.  Monitored HMP’s “Giving Tuesday” donation website. Guest appearance on MSSU TV Newsmaker show.

DECEMBER: Overlooked history

Conducted the Austin Allen, the Architect — Remembered historic building tour and lecture which was co-sponsored by Visit Joplin and Joplin Celebrations Commission .  Received a Visit Joplin grant to pay for production of a booklet featuring Murphysburg District houses.  Continued dialogue with City officials to save 130 S. Moffet, the Albert Newman House from demolition.

ONGOING

  • Manage Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Mail Chimp, HMP website, liability insurance, storage unit, and more.
  • Manage communications, inquiries about houses for sale, Joplin history & media inquiries. 
  • Conduct historical research using Ancestry.com, Find-a-Grave, Newspapers.com, etc.
  • Interface with North Heights Neighborhood Group, Downtown Joplin Alliance, City of Joplin, Joplin Historical Neighborhoods, Inc., Connect 2 Culture, Bluehaven Homes & Bykota, REI (the Olivia Apartments) and many other community organizations/projects.
  • Welcomed new Murphysburg homeowners with historical documentation on their house and general HMP membership information.

Robert Cooper & Mary Walsh House

Robert C. (1863-1911) and Mary Ford Walsh (1865-1918) were the first owners of this
house. They lived here with their seven children. By 1910, the couple had moved across
the alley to 114 S. Byers Avenue. Mr. Walsh was widely known in business and social
circles of Joplin. He was involved in the lumber company for 14 years and was the
president of the Walsh-Thompson Lumber Co. at the time of his death.
Robert and Mary are buried at Mount Hope Cemetery in Webb City, Missouri.

 SOUTHWEST MISSOURI RAILROAD CLUBHOUSE 

In 1889, Alfred Harrison “A.H.” Rogers (1858-1920) started a railway system between Webb City and Carterville pulled by mules.  After 1893, the system was electrified.  It continued until late summer of 1935 for Carthage, and 1940 for other communities.  The clubhouse was constructed for officials and employees. 

The A.H. Rogers House is in the Murphysburg Historic District at 623 W. Fourth Street and is currently being restored by Joplin Historical Neighborhoods, Inc.

Charlie22 Outdoor’s mission is to provide outdoor activities to the nation’s veterans and their families.  For more information, contact Scotty Rae Hettinger at (417) 437-7247 or charlie22outdoors.com.

Following are excerpts from the Joplin History & Mineral Museum calendar published in 2021:  Originally, the first floor was divided into a pool room, a gymnasium that was also used for large social groups, a locker room, a dressing room, toilets, and shower baths.  The second floor housed the clubrooms, complete with a kitchen and dining area.  The clubrooms were used for reading, writing, card playing, social entertainments, banquets, and to conduct business meetings.  The third floor consisted of two dormitories, where a bed could be rented by the day or week.  The facility was possibly best remembered for the elaborate employee banquets. 

COSGROVE BUILDING

Built by Henrietta Jackson Cosgrove (1849-1927) who was a mine operator, writer, civic
leader, suffragist, philanthropist and involved in real estate. One of her greatest
accomplishments was securing pensions for miners’ widows by proposing that states adopt
widow’s pensions rather than vagrancy laws, thus saving the states’ money. By the 1920s, all
but four states adopted widows’ pension laws. She was married to Aruna P. Cosgrove (1842-
1901) and they had one daughter.
 
In May 2014, Mr. Allen was forced to sue Mrs. Cosgrove for the balance due on his commission
for the building. In December 2014 the case was dismissed when she finally paid him the
$460.32.

Businesses were located on the bottom floor and offices and living quarters on the top floor. In
December 1915 while Mrs. Cosgrove slept upstairs, robbers entered the Graham Brothers’
Grocery Store downstairs and stole chewing gum, cigars, chewing tobacco, ate lunch, and kept
warm around an oil lamp!
 
Through the years many different companies have officed here including the City of Joplin
Commissioners and Atlas Powder Company in 1914 and the Joplin Convention & Visitors
Bureau in the 1990s and early 2000s.
 
To learn more about the future of this building, contact Heather Lesmeister, Executive Director,
Spiva Center for the Arts at 417-623-0183.

William Henry Picher House

421 South Sergeant Avenue
Colonial Revival, circa 1899
Features: Porte Cochère and Stained Glass Transom

William Henry Picher (1851-1924) was married to Susan Brummel Jones Picher (1851-1904).
The Picher name has long been associated with Joplin’s lead and zinc mining history. In 1875,
William and his brother, Judge Oliver Hazard Picher organized the Picher Lead and Zinc Co. and later they merged with Eagle Paint Co. of Cincinnati, Ohio to become the Eagle-Picher Lead Co., one of the largest lead smelting concerns in the world. The City of Picher, Oklahoma was named after the Picher family.

By 1920, Mr. Picher was living at the Olivia Apartments. He bequeathed $500 per year for 20 years to the City of Joplin. The $10,000 ($176,000 in 2023 dollars) was to be “used for caring
for the poor of the city.”

Vintage photo

ARCHITECTURE

The two-and-one-half-story Colonial Revival house has a limestone foundation and hip roof. An enclosed shed roof porch projects from the east elevation. Three gabled dormers rise from the west slope of the roof. The center dormer is larger with a scrolled parapet. A single gabled dormer rises from the north and south slopes of the roof. Two brick chimneys rise from the roof. A wide wood cornice with modillions ornaments the roofline.

Paneled wood columns articulate the corners. A full-width flat roof porch spans the primary (west) elevation and continues north as a porte cochère. It has wood Doric columns and a turned wood balustrade. This elevation has three symmetrical bays. Bay 2 has a wood door with multi-light beveled glazing and a stained glass transom on the first story. A band of two single windows, separated by a medallion pierces the second story.