Director

Christian Ludwig Rutt was born in 1859 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The son of German immigrants, the family moved to Atchison, Kansas where Rutt received his education at St. Benedict’s Parochial School and College. Rutt worked various jobs before settling in as a prolific writer for local newspapers and updating the Buchanan County History books of 1904 and 1914. Prior to his writing career, however, Rutt joined Charles G. Underwood in the purchasing of a flour mill in St. Joseph in 1888. Dubbed Pearl Milling Company, Rutt &amp; Underwood developed the formula for an easy pancake mix that would revolutionize breakfast prep.When marketing the mixture, Rutt looked back at the minstrel shows he attended as a child and young adult. Minstrel shows were musical acts where white performers dressed in Black face and portrayed racial stereotypes of African Americans, perpetuating southern slave culture in the post Civil War period. These performances were commonplace throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the ramifications of these racist portrayals within our American popular culture is still being addressed today. Thus, the Aunt Jemima brand was created.Pearl Milling Company failed to capitalize on marketing their invention and in 1890 they sold the mill to Randolph True Davis. The R.T. Davis Milling Company was already wildly successful and conglomerated the local mills into one entity. R.T. Davis was born in 1837 in southeastern Buchanan County, Missouri as one of the earliest families to settle the region. He began milling in 1866 and expanded into St. Joseph. Taking and improving the Aunt Jemima pancake mixture, R.T. Davis brought the product and the company to a national audience in 1893.Davis hired Nancy Green, a former slave and cook to a pair of Chicago lawyers, to portray the character of Aunt Jemima at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Nancy Green demonstrated how the pancake mixture worked and sold millions of pancakes at the fair, spreading word of the product across America. Her likeness was used for the brand and Aunt Jemima became a household name. The mixture became so synonymous with the company that the R.T. Davis Milling Company was renamed the Aunt Jemima Milling Company in 1913. Quaker Oats purchased the company in 1925 and trademarked the Aunt Jemima name. R.T. Davis did not live long enough to see the success of the product, passing away the year after it's debut in Chicago.

R.T. Davis was born in 1837 in southeastern Buchanan County, Missouri as one of the earliest families to settle the region. He began milling in 1866 and expanded into St. Joseph and conglomerated the local mills into one entity, the R.T. Davis Milling Company. His home at 319 North 20th Street was designed by Joseph H. Bennett in 1890 and is often referred to as the Aunt Jemima House.

R.T. Davis House

News clipping - 1900 December: “A very pretty event took place Christmas night at Cloverly Farm when Misses Hazel and Gladys Tootle received a large number of friends. The hours were devoted to dancing in the large reception hall with Pryor's orchestra. The house was decorated with holly, mistletoe and evergreens. Among the guests were: Misses Berenice and Maud Wyeth, Sara Kennard, Rachel Landis, Katharine Motter, Lettie Lemon, Louise Van Natta, Lillian Tootle, Monette Shoup, Ada Lyon, Louise McDonald, Messrs. Frank and Dave Kennard, Harry Tootle, Grant Duncan, Louis Hax, Walter Landis, Percy Johnson, W. C. Motter, W. D. B. Motter, Jr., Ernest Sipple, Alan Van Natta, Hal Lemon, Webb Steele, Hartley Garlichs, Will Fairleigh, Louis Smith, Will Wyeth, Charles Berry, Barrow Motter, and Irving McDonald.’John James Tootle was the third child of Milton Tootle I and Katherine O'Neill. His brother, Milton Tootle, Jr., was important in St. Joseph banking. John was mainly involved in Tootle Dry Goods, which was begun by his father in 1849. He was President of the Tootle Estate, retiring from all business in 1949.John Tootle was married to Ella Parker, with whom he had one daughter, Catherine. Catherine had one son, Jack, by her first husband, who died when Jack was very small. She remarried to Stanley Birdsall and they moved to St. Joseph. Jack officially took the surname Tootle.In 1906 John Tootle &amp; Ella divorced and Cloverly Farms was awarded to Ella.Jack Tootle, the grandson, was Vice President of Tootle Dry Goods for 23 years. He died in Florida at age 91, in 2009.

Cloverly sat at the present site of Bishop Leblond High School, and was an enormous country home belonging to John J. Tootle. The home featured six Romanesque two story columns on each end and at the front, for a total of eighteen two story columns, twelve windows on the facade, and a porch that wrapped completely around its rectangular footprint. The mansion-style home was designed by E.J. Eckel, Architect, and built in 1899. The home &amp; property was sold to the Catholic Church c. 1923 and operated as an orphanage until 1959. In the 1960s, the home was demolished and Bishop LeBlond High School was built on the site.

Cloverly Farm 

In the Late 1880’s Jewish immigrants primarily from Russia began arriving in St. Joseph, fleeing waves of violent anti-Semitism that washed across Eastern Europe. This community quickly founded the conservative Jewish temple of Shaare Sholem. With this temple came the development of Shaare Sholem cemetery in the mid 1890’s. Despite humble beginnings as refugees, this community flourished within St. Joseph for many years, and this is evident when walking through the cemetery. While rather modest in design, the headstones are often impressively large. One will also see many familiar names associated with prominent businesses in town, such as Einbender or Leibowitz (which is still in business today.) Many of the individuals associated with the Felix Street Commercial Corridor and the 600 Block of S. 10th Street entries are buried at Shaare Sholem. Those who had businesses on Felix Street are Abe Leibowitz, Jacob Rositzky, Jacob Saferstein, Abraham and Sylvia Einbender, and Joseph and Lillian Optican. The neighbors on S. 10th Street who have graves here are Esther Kalis, the Dolginoff family, the Gordon family, the Borofsky family, and Harry Vegder.Others of note who are buried here include Rabbi N. Braude and Rabbi H.D. Borofsky.While both cemeteries are aesthetically quite different, one will notice several commonalities that are typically not seen outside of Jewish cemeteries. Many headstones will have small rocks or pebbles placed on top of them. This is a practice done to show respect, and to remind the dead that the living have not forgotten them. The other is the Cohanim or Kohanim hands. These hands are a symbol of the priestly tribe of Aaron, Moses’ brother, which is passed down from generation to generation. The Cohanim is depicted as two hands joined at the thumbs, and sometimes forefingers.

Shaare Sholem is a Jewish cemetery primarily serving the Jewish community of eastern european descent. The oldest burials date back to the late 1890’s.In the late 1880s St. Joseph had a large influx of Jewish immigrants from Russia who were fleeing the anti-Semitic violence that was washing across Eastern Europe at that time. This conservative community quickly founded Shaare Sholem temple, and in the 1890s they established the Shaare Sholem cemetery. In 1919, the congregation purchased an additional tract of land with plans to expand the size of the cemetery; however, neighboring residents objected to the expansion and the debate became quite heated. In 1949, architect Eugene Meier released the sketches for the chapel which was dedicated as the David Friedman Chapel in 1963. This community flourished and grew in St. Joseph for several decades and as one walks through the well-kept grounds you see many familiar names on the stones. Though most of the members of St. Joseph’s once large Jewish community have left the city, some come back in death and many are buried at Shaare Sholem.

Shaare Sholem Cemetery

Samuel Miller Nave was born in Savannah, MO in 1849 to Abram and Lucy McCord Nave. Abram and Lucy’s brother, James Walker McCord, founded Nave-McCord Mercantile Company in Savannah, MO in 1846. By 1857, they moved the business headquarters to St. Joseph, MO which had become the business capital of the Midwest. The business prospered and Samuel finished his education in St. Joseph before attending Princeton University. He graduated in 1871 and returned to work for his family’s company, eventually becoming president of Nave-McCord Mercantile Company.Samuel married Minnie Holliday of St. Louis in 1871 and they had two children; Lucille in 1877 and Samuel Fritz in 1881. By 1889, the year Harvey Ellis came to St. Joseph, the Nave family was looking to construct a new home. Until that point, they were residing at the southeast corner of 8th and Jules Streets, and they resided in the Wyeth Flats at the corner of 11th and Faraon while it was being constructed. Eckel and Mann secured the contract for the home to be constructed at the corner of 22nd and Clay in September of 1889 for $20,000 (over $270,000 today). It was completed in October 1890 and published in American Architect on November 22, 1890.Samuel married Minnie Holliday of St. Louis in 1871 and they had two children; Lucille in 1877 and Samuel Fritz in 1881. By 1889, the year Harvey Ellis came to St. Joseph, the Nave family was looking to construct a new home. Until that point, they were residing at the southeast corner of 8th and Jules Streets, and they resided in the Wyeth Flats at the corner of 11th and Faraon while it was being constructed. Eckel and Mann secured the contract for the home to be constructed at the corner of 22nd and Clay in September of 1889 for $20,000. It was completed in October 1890 and published in American Architect on November 22, 1890.Harvey Ellis’ original 1889 design for the S.M. Nave house was much larger and extravagant than the building which still stands today. It included a carriage house connected by walls with archway entrances. An updated rendering by draftsman Ben Trunk in 1891 more closely resembles the current state of the home. Whether Ellis’ design was constructed and cut back in the following years is unknown. As with most of Ellis’ work with Eckel and Mann, it is likely his version served as an idealized starting point for his fellow draftsmen to build off of, resulting in the final product similar to the 1891 design. The Nave family lived and entertained in the home in 1890, so were the 1891 plans drawn after construction or did they represent changes to the original, already completed home?Samuel Miller Nave passed away in 1901. His daughter Lucille married figure skater Irving Brokaw in 1903. Fritz joined the Navy for a short time and was also married in 1903. He moved around between California and New York, marrying three times before his death in 1918. Minnie Nave moved to New York with Lucille after Sam died. She then moved to Paris and renounced her American citizenship in 1908, but returned to New York after WWII. She outlived her two children, passing away in 1949.

In 1889, the Nave family was looking to construct a new home. Eckel and Mann secured the contract for the home to be constructed at the corner of 22nd and Clay in September of 1889 for $20,000. It was completed in October 1890 and published in American Architect on November 22, 1890.

S.M. Nave House

Mount Auburn was established in 1903, though there are burials going back to the 1850’s. The cemetery was plotted and incorporated by prominent pioneers Napoleon and Isaac Miller. Originally the Miller family had a small family burial ground on their property located off of Lover’s Lane (the Miller house still stands at 3003 Ashland Avenue). Upon purchasing Mt. Auburn, Napoleon and Isaac moved their family members from the Miller cemetery on Lover’s Lane to Mt. Auburn in the 1920’s. Mt. Auburn is notable due to its exceptionally large number of veteran burials. In the late 1980’s, the cemetery opened a new section called the “Field of Honor” where veterans and their spouses could receive free burial lots. The cemetery received a lot of local attention when opening this new section; 200 concrete coffin vaults were stacked along the front lawn of the cemetery directly across from what is now Coleman Elementary.

For over 100 years, Mount Auburn Cemetery has provided families with a peaceful setting for their burial needs. With burial spaces to fit every family’s budget, Mount Auburn offer upright and flat marker sections for burial, as well as space for private family estates or mausoleums. The Veterans Field of Honor is special section reserved for veterans and their families.

Mount Auburn Cemetery

This facility originally began as the State Lunatic Asylum No. 2. This hospital was part of the Kirkbride Plan, a series of identical hospitals all over the nation that housed the insane, criminally or otherwise. The State Lunatic Asylum no. 2 opened in 1874 and was initially able to house 25 patients. Soon afterwards it expanded to house 250 patients. By the 1950s, it had grown to house 3000 occupants; during this time its name changed to the St. Joseph State Hospital.In 1966, an employee of the Missouri Department of Mental Health, George Glore, made replicas of many tools used for treatments in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. What sparked the creation of these tools, was his desire to celebrate Mental Health Awareness Week. These collections of tools formed the basis for the Glore Psychiatric Museum, which was established the following year in 1967.The Glore Psychiatric Museum tells a story of how America was concerned with public mental health, but unable to adequately treat it. The exhibits explore how mental health treatment has evolved over the years. Many treatments used on patients would be considered unethical by today’s standards, such as isolation chambers, and inducing patients into diabetic comas.

The Glore Psychiatric Museum was established in 1967 in St. Joseph, MO, by a long-time worker of the Missouri Department of Mental Health, George Glore. Once known as the State Lunatic Asylum no. 2, the museums hold exhibits of old treatment devices for the insane. Most of these treatments were ineffective because as a society, people were still trying to figure out how to treat mental health problems. The museum holds the history of the old asylum as a testament of how important, yet terribly ineffective we were at handling mental health.

Glore Psychiatric Museum

The Jewish community began in St. Joseph in the wake of the 1848 gold rush. Very quickly they established the Jewish Burial Society and opened Adath Joseph Cemetery. The cemetery predates Temple Adath Joseph by nearly a decade with the congregation beginning to hold services in 1856 in a hall on Felix Street. The congregation of Temple Adath Joseph were largely of German ethnicity. One of the early burials is that of Levi Rosenblatt who died in 1859 at the age of 31. Levi was the first leader of Rosenblatt’s Band which arrived in St. Joseph in 1854. Rosenblatt’s Band was the first brass and string band that had ever been seen in St. Joseph and were very popular for many years, often being referred to as one of the “finest musical organizations in the west.” Levi’s headstone is adorned with a Lyre, often representing heavenly music, and is undoubtedly a nod to his musical gifts.The Rosenblatt family lived in several homes in the 600 block of S. 10th Street. Others who lived on S. 10th Street and who are buried here include George Silberman and the Block Family. Those associated with the Felix Street Commercial Corridor whose graves can be found here are Aaron J. Strauss, Samuel Kahn, and William Lehman. Other notable burials include the Westheimer family who were important figures in the wholesale liquor business in St. Joseph. Several of their impressive homes are still standing including the Whiskey Mansion Inn at 1723 Francis

In 1848, St. Joseph began to grow rapidly as a jumping off point for those heading west to find gold and broader horizons. The influx of people created a diverse and rather cosmopolitan community in what had been little more than a backwater trading post. A relatively large community of Jewish immigrants from Germany arose. Before long they established the Jewish Burial Society which opened Adath Joseph Cemetery at 3155 Beck Road (the cemetery predated the synagogue by the same name). This cemetery served as the primary burial place for members of the German Jewish community of St. Joseph and so many of the most prosperous members of the St. Joseph Jewish community were buried here. It is currently the least used of the three Jewish cemeteries and is suffering from the effects of deferred maintenance.It is said that Adath Joseph cemetery is the oldest Jewish cemetery west of the Mississippi, with its first burial taking place in 1843. The cemetery served Temple Adath Joseph and the German Jewish population.

Adath Joseph Cemetery

Ashland Cemetery was originally 2 separate cemeteries; Oakland and Ashland. Oakland Cemetery was established in 1848 by the congregation of German Evangelical Zion church. Ashland Cemetery was established in 1869. At that time, both cemeteries were several miles outside of town, and what is now known as Ashland Avenue was known as Rochester Road. In 1913, due to their close proximity, the two cemeteries were merged.The burials within Ashland Cemetery are wildly diverse, which makes for a fascinating visit. Within what was originally Oakland Cemetery stand 2 stones that mark the graves of early members of St. Joseph’s once thriving Chinese population. The stones do not seem to have ever been translated. Throughout the Oakland section of the cemetery, many stones bear German inscriptions. Two Pony Express riders, Mich L. Whalen and John Philip Koerner, are buried within the cemetery, along with over 200 Civil War Union veterans. Another notable burial is that of Frank Grouard, an Army chief of scouts during the Indian Wars who was captured by the Sioux and knew Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull.

Ashland was originally 2 separate cemeteries; Oakland and Ashland. Oakland was established in 1848, and Ashland was established in 1870. The two were joined in 1913. Notable interments are those of 2 pony express riders, Michael Whalen and John Phillip Koerner.

Ashland Cemetery

Though departing St. Joseph to live primarily in Los Angeles, where he died in 1912, Mr. Noyes left money in his will for the construction of a hospital to serve the city’s poor. It opened in 1916, later drawn into the Methodist Hospital orbit. Noyes Hospital, 2400 Frederick, was constructed in 1915 under terms of the will of Charles Noyes, who had been president of Noyes Norman Shoe Company. This hospital provided free care for children of limited income families as part of its service. This was originally Noyes Hospital and was located at 24th &amp; Frederick Ave. (The building still stands under the name Frederick Towers.) In 1953 it was listed as Missouri Methodist Hospital Nurses Home. Anchor Serum acquired the building in 1955. Anchor Serum moved their operation to Belt &amp; Gene Field. It is now called Frederick Towers and now houses many business offices. On the top floor, in the center, was the operating room. The bottom floor ( basement) was where the morgue was located.

In accordance to the will of Charles Noyes of the Noyes Norman Company, the Noyes Hospital was constructed at 2400 Frederick Ave in 1915. In 1955 the building was purchased by Anchor Serum to be used as their corporate offices. In 1968 the building became an apartment complex known as Frederick Towers.

Noyes Hospital

The origins of the museum date back to 1913 when a group of 12 women established the St. Joseph Art League to promote the arts in the community. The League bought the first artwork, "A Venetian Balcony" by William Merritt Chase, in 1915. They raised the funds to pay for it by hosting tea parties, fundraising, and offering a special showing of the painting at a department store. It took several decades for the organization to grow in order to buy the Albrecht home in 1966. In 1991, the museum built a large addition thanks in large part to a benefactor named R. Crosby Kemper.&nbsp;

Located in the former home of businessman William Albrecht and his wife, the Albrecht-Kempter Museum of Art is an important cultural arts center in the region. Opened in 1966, it houses one of the best collections of American art dating from the 18th-century to the present in the Midwest, including American landscape paintings, Colonial portraits, and American Impressionism works. Artists represented here include Gilbert Stuart, Thomas Hart Benton, Grant Wood, and Mary Cassatt. In addition, the museum offers changing exhibitions, various educational programs, and hosts performances.

Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art

NAtalie and Milton Tootle III lived at 119 N 19th Street. Milton III is Billy Tootle's older brother

Home of Natalie and Milton Tootle III

James William McAlister was born in Lincoln, Kentucky in 1852. He married Josephine Embry Withers in 1883 in his hometown, though he had relocated to St. Joseph by that time to seek his fortune. Through the 1880s McAlister worked as a cashier for the Saxton National Bank, located at Fourth and Francis. He worked his way up to Vice President of the bank until its merger with the Schuster-Hax National Bank to form the First National Bank in 1894. McAlister remained as first cashier for the First National Bank until 1902 when he and his family relocated to California.At the height of St. Joseph’s building movement, corresponding with Harvey Ellis’ tenure with Eckel &amp; Mann, J.W. McAlister commissioned a home for himself and his growing family at the corner of 19th and Felix Streets. Ellis drafted two radically different plans for the structure, but the finalized home maintained the form of the second plan. It was a large brick structure in the Spanish-Romanesque style. It had several towers and oriels, a loggia and archway over the main entrance, as well as an arched carriage entrance attached to the rear of the building. As with many of the Ellis buildings, the McAlister home was completed in 1890.The McAlister home had a long history of occupancy following the departure of its original owners to California. Albert Jacob August, founder of the A.J. August Clothing Store at Fourth and Felix Streets, purchased the home from McAlister and moved in in April 1903. August was born in New York in 1860 to Jacob and Bertha Eppstein August. His father, who was also a clothier, moved the family to Kansas in the 1880s. A.J. August came to St. Joseph to marry Sarah Weil in 1885, establishing his own business which would become one of the most well known brands in the region. The couple had a son, Stanley, and a daughter, Elaine, who were teenagers when they moved into the former McAlister home.After A.J. August passed away in 1940, the home became the perfect location for the St. Joseph Museum. The museum, which had been established in 1927, had made its home in the annex of the St. Joseph Public Library at Tenth and Felix. Its ever growing collection required a larger space, so the board of directors purchased the A.J. August house to make room for the museum’s extensive exhibits. The museum was located in the A.J. August home from 1942-1947 when it expanded once again into the Wyeth-Tootle Mansion.The short tenure of the St. Joseph Museum location within the home is often cited as an example of the paranormal activity which seems to occur within. The museum had a difficult time maintaining security guards to watch the building overnight due to reports of running water and closing doors. Residents since have cited hearing a child, a servant, and a young man as well as movement through the home and missing items. Stanley August passed away at the young age of 36 while still residing in his parents’ home. J.W. McAlister allegedly lost a child whose face was carved in terra cotta above the entrance arch by Ellis’ design. These legends have continued to make the McAlister/A.J. August House a favored piece of St. Joseph architecture through the generations.

Constructed in 1890 for banker J.W. McAlister, this home has had a long history and fascinating history. Though McAlister only lived in the home for a few decades, it became the home of clothier A.J. August for several years before being donated as a location for the St. Joseph Museum. The museum also only remained for a short time, fueling tales of hauntings that persist to this day.

J.W. McAlister/A.J. August House

St. Joseph began to be settled sometime before 1830 when fur trader Joseph Robidoux founded a trading post for the American Fur Company. He eventually bought the company's interest in the post in 1830. The location attracted him and other settlers because it was where Blacksnake Creek and Missouri River met. Robidoux filed a plat for the city in 1843 and the city quickly grew (the Platte Purchase of 1837, which opened up Northern Missouri to white settlement, facilitated this growth). When gold was found in California in 1848, St. Joseph became the starting point for the Oregon Trail.  As St. Joseph grew, the need for a local cemetery became apparent. Sadly, disease was prevalent and many people died even before starting off on their journeys west. Residents buried their loved ones on their own property or in cemeteries in other parts of the county. Finally, a civil engineer and businessman named Simeon Kemper bought land for the cemetery. Its naturalistic setting and design made it a popular burial place. It does not appear that it is open to more burials.Established in 1851 and redesigned by noted architect W. Angelo Powell in 1872, Mount Mora Cemetery spans twenty acres and is a beautiful example of the rural garden cemetery movement in landscape architecture. Mount Mora was the preferred burial place for the city’s elite who could afford to hire architects to design their grave markers. The cemetery possesses a significant collection of funerary art including elaborate headstones, as well as twenty-one mausoleums that house some of St. Joseph’s most influential citizens, lining what is known as “Mausoleum Row.”  Not only a final resting place for the city's elite, within the gates of Mount Mora is a significant cross section of St. Joseph history, including approximately 280 civil war veterans, three Missouri governors, Pony Express riders, writers, inventors, musicians, the first licensed embalmer/funeral director in the U.S., and many more. Though its architectural significance hinges on the monuments to the city’s elite, its history is enhanced by the life stories of all those who are buried there.

Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2006, Mount Mora Cemetery is the oldest cemetery in St. Joseph, Missouri. It was established in the early 1850s to meet the needs of a growing town. People buried here include three Missouri governors, musicians, Civil War officers from both the Union and the Confederacy, Pony Express riders, and governors. Though it was primarily used by the rich, there is a variety of graves from mausoleums to simple headstones, showing the wide range of people interred in the cemetery. The mausoleums, of which there are 30, are particularly notable. Resembling small buildings, their ornate design reflects Egyptian and Classical architecture and the wealth of the those within them.  

Mount Mora Cemetery

Tootle-Wheeler-Motter Dry Goods Company, 219-223 N. Fourth Street, 4th &amp; Jules Streets, 1886. Designed in 1886 by Eckel &amp; Mann, Architects.

Tootle-Campbell Dry Goods, Co., formed in 1908 to replace the Tootle-Wheeler-Motter Dry Goods Co. (Which continued as Wheeler-Motter). In that year, the Tootles incorporated with the Campbell's to create a new wholesale distributorship and build a new 8-story building on the SW corner of 4th &amp; Faraon which included a sewing factory where they manufactured overalls, shirts, duck coats, and pants.

Tootle Dry Goods Store (Tootle-Wheeler-Motter)

Alfred Thomas Smith was the son of Spotswood and Mary Ann Thompson Smith. He was born in 1839 in Cooper County, MO and came to St. Joseph in the 1860s where he established a boot and shoe wholesale business. He married Corrine Cordell Stevens in 1889 and they had four children. With his shoe business booming, A.T. Smith hired Eckel and Mann to craft a home for him at 802 Hall Street. Unfortunately, his business collapsed in the panic of 1893 and the Smith family was never able to live in the home they had constructed. A.T. Smith joined his brothers in the business of Smith-McCord-Townsend Dry Good Company and worked for them until his death in 1907.John James Tootle was a second generation multi-millionaire. His father, Milton Tootle, came to Missouri in 1842, settling in Andrew County. Milton Tootle began his rise to fortune as a clerk at the store of George Smith in Savannah, MO, alongside his two brothers, Thomas and Joseph, and William Fairleigh. In 1849 these partners moved to St. Joseph, establishing Tootles &amp; Fairleigh.In 1860, Milton’s brother Joseph passed away and Thomas withdrew from the company. Milton and William Fairleigh married the sisters, Katherine and Alice O’Neill. Katherine and Milton had three children; a daughter Frances, and two sons, Milton, Jr. and John J. In 1887, the family purchased the Wyeth Mansion at Eleventh and Charles Streets, but Milton, Sr. passed away before they could move into the home. The teenaged children grew up in the mansion and Milton, Jr. resided there with his family for the remainder of his life.John J. Tootle married divorcee Ella Parker in 1896 and adopted her two daughters as his own. They made their home at 1912 Clay Street with a country home at the corner of Thirty-Sixth and Asylum Road called Cloverly (currently the site of the Bishop LeBlonde High School). They had a daughter of their own, Katherine and in 1919 they moved into the former A.T. Smith home at 802 Hall Street.John J. Tootle founded the Missouri Valley Trust Company in 1899, constructing the historic building at Fourth and Felix. He was president of the company until 1919 when he sold it to Frank Boder. After the death of his uncle, Thomas Tootle, in 1908, John J. took over the Tootle Dry Goods Company until his retirement in 1949, one hundred years after the Tootle family business was founded.The home at 802 Hall Street was not completed according to Ellis’ original design, though elements of his style remained. The main facade is asymmetric, as with many of Ellis’ works. There is a mixture of Chateauesque and Romanesque styles with towers and dormers, chimney stacks and steeply pitched roofs. Ornate finials accentuate its roofline. Similar to the McNeely home, the A.T. Smith home featured curved windows accented by heavy columns, tiled fireplaces with marble fronts, a rich woodwork in the interior.

Constructed in the 1890s, this Chateau-Romanesque home was designed by the firm of Eckel and Mann. Alfred Smith, a local shoe merchant, commissioned the home, but  lost his fortune in the panic of 1893. His family never resided in the home which bears his name, but by 1920 802 Hall Street was the home of John J. Tootle, son of multi-millionaire Milton Tootle. 

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R.T. Davis House

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