The Hotel Patee House opened in 1858 as Saint Joseph’s finest hotel, built by John Patee at a cost of $200,000 with the latest technology and a lavish interior to give westward-bound travelers a last luxurious stop before the frontier. As Saint Joseph grew from a busy riverboat town into the westernmost railroad stop when the Hannibal & Saint Joseph Railroad opened in 1859, the hotel became a local landmark, hosted political rallies and town events, and stood at the center of the Pony Express opening celebration in April 1860. During the Civil War, a divided Saint Joseph saw strong secessionist sympathy, and on September 22, 1860, William Seward spoke from the hotel’s front balcony warning that slavery was destined to end, though the crowd disagreed. After Fort Sumter, Southern sympathizers in the Missouri Volunteer Militia briefly camped near the hotel under Colonel M. Jeff Thompson, but lack of food and supplies soon sent them home. Union troops then occupied Saint Joseph to control the railroad, commandeered the hotel on June 10, 1861, used it to house officers, and on June 11 Colonel Everett Peabody raised the U.S. flag there under Captain Alfred Sully’s orders despite a city decree against flying flags. Colonel Samuel Curtis arrived on June 15, 1861, with the 2nd Iowa Infantry and also established headquarters there before leaving to pursue Major General Sterling Price and the Missouri State Guard. For the rest of the war, the hotel served as headquarters for the district Union Army Provost Marshal, with the provost office on the fourth floor and trials held in the ballroom, while Saint Joseph remained under martial law from October 1861 until the war’s end. In early September 1861, Confederate partisans burned the lower support timbers of the 160-foot Platte River railroad bridge, and on the night of September 3, 1861, it collapsed beneath a westbound train, killing at least 17 people and injuring more than 100. Because Saint Joseph had no hospital, survivors were brought to the Hotel Patee House for treatment. The sabotage led Union authorities to order the arrest and execution of bushwhackers, while Sterling Price defended the attack as lawful warfare and Henry Halleck condemned the perpetrators as spies, marauders, robbers, incendiaries, and guerrilla bands in the garb of peaceful citizens.
