Patee House Museum and Jesse James Home

John Patee built his hotel in 1858 as a last stop of comfort for travelers heading west, with hot and cold running water. It never worked long as a hotel. It stood too far from downtown, and the site flooded after hard rains. Russell, Majors and Waddell put the Pony Express headquarters on its first floor in April 1860, and in the Civil War the Union provost marshal kept his office here; after the war Confederate officers were tried in the ballroom. In 1865 Patee tried to dispose of the place in a nationwide lottery and kept it when the winning ticket turned up among the unsold ones. It was then Patee Female College, a hotel again, St. Joseph Female College from 1876 to 1881, the World's Hotel until December 1882, and from 1886 a garment factory into the late 1950s. Condemned and scheduled for demolition in the early 1960s, it was bought by the Pony Express Historical Association and named a National Historic Landmark in 1965.

In 1977 the association acquired the Jesse James Home and moved it from 1318 Lafayette Street, a block north, to the southwest corner of the hotel lot. James had moved his wife and two children there on Christmas Eve 1881 under the name Thomas Howard, and Robert Ford shot him in the house on April 3, 1882. The bullet hole is still shown, though a 1995 exhumation found the bullet never left his skull. The hotel also holds the bars of the old Buffalo Saloon and a 1940s carousel.