Home > MO > Joplin >

1870s Historic Building

519 Broadway, Joplin, MO
Phone:

East < GO > West

This is the oldest commercial building in Joplin, it dates back to the very early 1870s. It started life as the Oner & Shepherd drug store according to an article in the Joplin Globe on February 24, 1952. It went on to house various drug store, grocers, a Masonic Lodge Hall, a Woodmens Hall, aoda pop bottlers among other businesses, and maybe an apartment or two. I mentioned apartments because the 1952 article was really about a time when the infamous Frank and Jesse James Brothers gang game to Joplin and reportedly possibly stayed here.

In the early Route 66 period the building housed the Leon H. Hand Botteling and Distributing Company folled by the Massa Bottling Company. That seems to have lasted until the mid-1940s. By the spring of 1947 a "Self Help" laundy had moved in. from the late-1940s to at least the early 1950s it seems to have a second shop of some sort. By 1961 it was home to a rtefrigeration and and condo\ioning service company. After that is a mystery to me, except at some poin t someone installed that false front on the building.

Photo(s) 2016