Conflict and uncertainty gripped northwest Missouri in the summer of 1864 as Federal forces struggled to control a region too large for their capabilities, Kansas raiders such as Red Legs and jayhawkers terrorized civilians, and Confederate guerrilla activity increased under recruiters including Lieutenant Colonel John C. Calhoun "Coon" Thornton. As General Sterling Price's invasion of Missouri approached, Thornton began a recruiting and "hold the land" campaign in Platte County, making Parkville his first objective in July 1864. Parkville was occupied by about 60 men of the 82d Enrolled Missouri Militia under Captain Thomas Wilson, known as Paw Paws and headquartered in the Missouri Valley Hotel, a large stone-and-frame building called the Paw Paw Fort. On the morning of July 7, 1864, Thornton, Captain Charles Fletcher "Fletch" Taylor, and 60 partisan guerrillas, including Frank and Jesse James, entered Parkville and demanded its surrender. Wilson fled, the militia barricaded themselves in the hotel, and after a shot from the building prompted return fire that wounded Lieutenant Martin C. Noland and a woman beside him, Taylor's men broke open the front door with a log, found the militia had withdrawn to the second floor, and forced their surrender by threatening to burn the building. Forty-two militiamen immediately joined Thornton's force, while the rest were paroled and released unharmed, and the Confederates, now numbering just over 100 men, occupied Parkville for the next two days before departing on July 10 for Platte City. The Missouri Valley Hotel, built in 1851 by Colonel George S. Park, had also housed his newspaper The Industrial Luminary from 1853 to 1855 until a proslavery mob threw its press into the river on April 14, 1855, and during the Civil War the Federal government confiscated the building for use as headquarters for Union forces in Parkville.
