The St. Joseph Story

Early History
Town Development
Recent Times
Interesting Facts

Early History

crossing-MO-River_1800s Located on the extreme northwestern edge of Missouri, St. Joseph is a city filled with echoes of prosperous merchants, outlaws and those brave young riders who made the Pony Express a never-to-be-forgotten legend. Beautiful historic buildings and magnificent mansions still recall this bygone era.

The first people to come to the St. Joseph area moved from the Great Lakes region around 1300. They came as a result of tribal warfare in their original homeland and in search of new land. Later, the arrival and the expansion of the white populations in the east also caused the tribes to move to new locations. The Missouri Indians, who arrived around 1650, were the first recorded tribe in this area. In the early 1800s, the Missouri were defeated by their enemies and the remnants of the tribe went to live with the Oto. Today, there are no remaining full-blooded Missouri Indians.

The first person to leave a recorded description of a journey up the Missouri River through future St. Joseph was Etienne de Bourgmont in 1714. However, French traders had been traveling up and down the river for many years. Joseph Robidoux, founder of St. Joseph, first journeyed up the Missouri River from his home in St. Louis in 1799.

In 1803, the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France. To chart this newly acquired land, President Thomas Jefferson sent out the first United States-sponsored military expedition. The expedition, led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, left from St. Louis on May 14, 1804. The journey to the Pacific Ocean and back took a little over two years. They returned to St. Louis on September 23, 1806. On the journey upriver, they passed future St. Joseph, known to them as St. Michael's Prairie.

Lewis and Clark opened the way for American fur traders into the Louisiana Territory and for gradual settlement. The earliest communities grew up along the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers.

Town Development

The history of "Joetown" goes back to the establishment of Joseph Robidoux’s first trading post in 1826. Robidoux, a smart, personable fur trader from St. Louis, filed his plat for St. Joseph in 1826, naming the new city after his patron saint. In 1993, St. Joseph celebrated its sesquicentennial, marking just 150 years from the official incorporation of the city.

Although Missouri had become the 24th U.S. State in 1821, this area was still Indian territory. Robidoux was popular with the various tribes, partly because he spoke several dialects, and because he was a skilled and experienced trader.

As for the astute fur trader prepared to sell new lots for his town, he set down one stipulation: No one could take possession until he had harvested his crop - marijuana. In those days, it was used in the making of hemp. Robidoux had negotiated with two town planners to design a street pattern. One, Simeon Kemper, suggested a city with wide avenues and parks. The other, Frederick A. Smith, devised a plan featuring narrow streets. The narrow-street plan prevailed. Robidoux reportedly remarked, "I want to sell my land in lots, not give it away in streets."

The original town was bounded by the Missouri River on the west, Sixth Street on the east, Messanie Street on the south and Robidoux Street on the north. The east-west streets were named downtown_riverfront_1900s for Robidoux family members—second wife Angelique, daughters Messanie and Sylvanie, and sons Charles, Edmond, Felix, Francis, Jules (for Julius Caesar) and Faraon.

The settlement grew steadily, but the discovery of gold in California in 1848 turned it into a boom area. Gold seekers came across Missouri to St. Joseph by steamboat, to where the city’s location on the westward bend of the Missouri River made it one of two choice "jumping-off" points (the other was Independence, about 60 miles southwest), a fact that city promoters enhanced with aggressive advertising in the eastern press.

Gold rushers bought supplies here for the westward wagon trek. Some have estimated that as many as 50,000 passed through in 1849 alone. Some 100,000 more pioneers would crowd the streets, bound for California and other points west, before trains shrank the distance and took most of the pain out of the trip.

Recent Times

The roles of the railroads and meatpacking houses have declined over the years, but St. Joseph today remains a regional hub built on a diversified economy. Founded in 1965, Missouri Western State University attracts a student body of over 5,000. The city also boasts a full-time symphony, two resident theater organizations, a community chorus, a Performing Arts Association which books national entertainers and numerous expositions and festivals. MO-River-1860

St. Joseph’s colorful history of a century and a half has fulfilled the vision of renowned naturalist John James Audubon who, in a May 1843, visit (two months before its official incorporation) described Robidoux’s settlement as "a delightful place for a populous city that will be here some 50 years hence."

Interesting Facts

St. Joseph has had a number of distinctions during its early history:

The first train from the east arrived here February 14, 1859. Until after the Civil War, St. Joseph was the westernmost point accessible by rail.
By 1900, St. Joseph was receiving more than 100 passenger trains a day.
The Pony Express began here April 3, 1860.
The notorious Jesse James was assassinated April 3, 1882 by Robert Ford after setting up residence to plan more bank holdups.
In 1887, St. Joseph became the second city in the U.S. (Richmond, Virginia, was the first) to have electric streetcars.
In 1889, the city hosted the New Era Exposition, in hopes of being chosen as the site for a future World’s Fair. A disastrous fire destroyed much of the fair, caused financial ruin for its major backers and ended any hope of attracting a World’s Fair.
Wholesale houses—shoes, dry goods and hardware were among the major ones—boosted St. Joseph’s prosperity during its Golden Age of the late 19th century. St. Joseph at one time ranked fourth in the nation for dry goods sales and fifth in hardware.
St. Joseph had its first telephone exchange in 1879. When the city was linked with the Atchison, Kansas exchange in 1881, it marked the first inter-city connection west of Buffalo, New York.
Livestock has been a major part of St. Joseph’s economy since 1846. Swift and Armour were the dominant names through the first six decades of this century, when employment totals were 6,000 or more for the industry here.