The 1859 Jail, Marshal’s Home and Museum at 217 North Main Street in Independence, Missouri is a complex of a two-story Federal-style brick marshal’s residence (1859-1860) fronting a limestone cell block built in 1859 as the third Jackson County jail.12 Designed by Asa Beebe Cross, it served as a jail for seventy-four years — including a Civil War stint as a Federal military prison and provost marshal’s headquarters — before being decommissioned in 1933.123 Saved from demolition in 1958 by the newly mobilized Jackson County Historical Society, with the first donation solicited by former President Harry S. Truman, it reopened as a museum in the jail’s centennial year, 1959, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on 15 June 1970 (reference no. 70000333).451

History

Construction, 1859

The Jackson County Court ordered the jail built in 1859, replacing an 1841 brick building that had grown too small for the fast-growing county; that structure had itself replaced a log jail of 1827 that burned.1 The county paid $11,844.20 for the jail and home — a figure the Jackson County Historical Society equates to roughly $325,893 in 2013 dollars.2

The architect was Asa Beebe Cross (1826-1894), a New Jersey-born, Philadelphia- and St. Louis-trained practitioner who came to Kansas City in 1857 and is estimated to have designed more than a thousand structures in Jackson County — among them the Vaile Mansion and the John Wornall House.63 The 1970 nomination notes that the original construction specifications survived and were used as a guide for the restoration.1

Life at the jail

The jailer — a deputy of the elected county marshal — lived with his family in the brick house at the front. The marshal’s office formed part of the residence but had its own street entrance so bookings and legal business stayed separate from family life.2 The jailer’s wife typically cooked for the prisoners as well as her own household; in 1884 the jailer was paid about $50 a month plus the use of the house.23

Pre-Civil War charges recorded against prisoners included horse racing on public streets, firing guns in town, operating a gaming house, assault and battery, disturbing the peace, disturbing a religious meeting, and building a privy “not over a pit.”23

Civil War

During the border war and the Civil War the building was used by Federal troops as a military prison and provost marshal’s headquarters, holding both military and civilian prisoners.12 Cells designed for three held as many as twenty.23 Those who refused the pro-Union loyalty oath were jailed here; the Jackson County Historical Society also states that women and children were detained during the Order No. 11 expulsions for aiding Confederate and guerrilla operatives.2 The nomination places the jail near two engagements — the Battle of Independence (1862) and the Battle of Westport (October 1864).1

Quantrill

William Clarke Quantrill, later the guerrilla leader of the 1863 raid on Lawrence, was jailed here briefly — before the Civil War, not during it. The Jackson County Historical Society dates the incarceration to 10 December 1860, when the 19-year-old Quantrill was held one night for “protective security” after betraying to the Walker family a Kansas abolitionist raid he had himself organized on Morgan Walker’s farm; Andrew Walker obtained his release, and only Walker’s plea is said to have dispersed a crowd on the Independence Square that wanted to hang him.3 The 1970 nomination agrees on substance and season — Quantrill “was released from the jail by authorities in the winter of 1860,” having been imprisoned “following a border raid in a prelude to the Civil War” — but does not give the day.1 Wikipedia’s placement of the episode “during the American Civil War” appears to be an error.5

Frank James

After the war the jail’s best-known inmate was Frank James, older brother of Jesse James. Following Jesse’s killing in April 1882 and Frank’s negotiated surrender, he was held in the Jackson County Jail awaiting trial for the murder of Captain John Sheets in a Gallatin, Missouri robbery.31 His cell was furnished with a Brussels carpet, fine furniture and paintings; he had the run of the jail and hosted card games at night.23 He was acquitted of every charge brought against him.3 The cell is preserved as a museum exhibit.57

Sources differ on the length of the stay: the Jackson County Historical Society says 112 days, Wikipedia “almost six months.”35 The marshal’s account book covering James’s imprisonment, listing what he cost the county, is in the Society’s collection.1

Other prisoners

  • Rev. Abner Deane, a Baptist minister jailed for refusing the loyalty oath; the controversy prompted Missouri artist George Caleb Bingham to paint Deane reading his Bible in the cell, a picture the nomination reports as owned by William Jewell College in Liberty13
  • William Bullitt Howard, founder of Lee’s Summit, held a month as a Southern sympathizer3
  • Henry Bugler, the jail’s first jailer, shot dead at the door on 13 June 1866 by armed horsemen demanding a prisoner’s release; his wife Mary Bugler finished his term3

The Society records two executions at the site: Edward Sneed, hanged in 1887 on gallows erected in what is now the courtyard, and Harry Jones, hanged inside from the second floor after the staircase was removed.3

1900s addition, Prohibition, and closure

A brick cell-block addition was built onto the rear of the limestone jail, adding twenty-eight cells and housing county work gangs who built roads and sewers.23 Its date is disputed: the 1970 nomination says 1900-1901; the Jackson County Historical Society and Wikipedia say 1907.125

Judge Ralph Latshaw of the Jackson County Criminal Court closed the jail in March 1920 to cut costs, but Marshal John L. Miles reopened it in 1921 as Prohibition raids filled it again.3 It was decommissioned in 1933 at the end of Prohibition.35 The county then passed the building to the Community Welfare League (now Community Services League); the Works Progress Administration used the old cell-block space for sewing, canning and ironing work during the Depression, and from 1941 to 1958 the American Legion’s Tirey J. Ford Post 21 met there.31

Rescue and museum, 1958-present

In 1958 a used-building-materials dealer sought permission to demolish the complex in exchange for the salvage.3 The announcement galvanized a preservation campaign; former President Harry S. Truman, by then retired in Independence, made the first telephone call, securing a $1,000 pledge from Joyce C. Hall of Hallmark Cards.341 The Jackson County Historical Society acquired the building in 1958, restored it, and opened it to the public in 1959.34 The Society traces its own institutional identity to that campaign.4

Restoration is continuous. A 2019 STRATA Architecture + Preservation assessment, funded by a $75,000 Sunderland Foundation grant, catalogued the building’s structural problems; a further $100,000 Sunderland grant in 2021 funded exterior work under a “Save the Jail” campaign, and the Independence Heritage Commission gave the Society its Preserve Independence Award that May.4 A $300,000 foundation-stabilization project on the northwest corner, by Pishny Restoration Services of Lenexa, broke ground in May 2024 and ran about six months with the museum staying open.8

Architecture

The 1970 nomination describes a complex of four elements: the 1859 stone jail, the 1859-1860 marshal’s residence attached to and screening its west front, the rear jail annex, and a relocated one-room frame schoolhouse in the southeast quadrant of the site.1 The schoolhouse is the Howard School, built for William Bullitt Howard’s children and donated by the Howard family in 1960.3

  • Marshal’s house: two-story rectangular Federal block of handmade red brick in running bond on a local limestone foundation; first-floor west facade in a door-window-window-window-door rhythm with five second-floor windows directly above; three-light transoms, limestone lintels, sills and thresholds; 6-over-6 double-hung sash with wood louver shutters; north-south ridge roof with a single chimney; a one-story kitchen extension at the southeast corner1
  • Stone jail: locally quarried rusticated ashlar limestone on a rubble foundation, the blocks roughly 24-28 inches wide, about 18 inches high and 6 feet long, doweled together with 4-inch iron rods; six windows each on the north and south walls, iron-framed, originally unglazed, with louvered bars below and a strap-iron grid above1
  • Cells: twelve in the 1859 block — six up, six down — behind two-foot limestone walls; each 6 by 9 feet, each with a grated iron door and a solid iron door; unheated and unlit but for a single kerosene lamp in the corridor, and some prisoners died of exposure25

Significance to Kansas City

The 1859 Jail is the oldest surviving structure on the Independence Square and a rare mid-nineteenth-century survivor of a building type — a working county jail with the keeper’s family living at the front door — that was almost never preserved.31 The 1970 nomination makes that unusualness its central argument for listing.1

Its second claim is evidentiary. The border war, the Civil War provost system, Order No. 11, the post-war outlaw era and Prohibition all left records in one building, and the Society holds the marshal’s ledgers and account books to match.12 It documents, in a way that Independence’s grander house museums cannot, the coercive machinery of a violently contested county.

Third, the jail is the origin story of organized historic preservation in Jackson County. The 1958-59 rescue — with a former president working the telephone and Hallmark’s founder writing the first check — created the operating model, and much of the constituency, for the county’s later heritage economy.41 The nomination explicitly credits Truman’s decision to retire in Independence and site his library there with awakening the local appetite for history that the jail campaign then focused.1

Visiting

  • Address: 217 N Main St, Independence, Missouri — just northeast of the Independence Square, at Main Street and Truman Road82
  • Owner-operator: Jackson County Historical Society, which also maintains offices at the Historic Truman Courthouse, 112 W Lexington Ave49
  • Phone: (816) 612-7979 per Visit Independence; the Society’s main line is (816) 461-189779
  • Season: an annual visitor season opening in April is referenced by the Society; current hours and admission are not confirmed by any source consulted8
  • Programming: the Society runs paranormal-themed “Jail Haunts” events in October, listed on its own events calendar — programming, not a factual claim about the building10

Neighborhood context

Sources

Footnotes

  1. National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination Form — “Jackson County Jail,” prepared by H. Patricia Holmes, Research Architectural Historian, Missouri State Park Board / State Historical Survey and Planning Office, 10 April 1970. PDF hosted by the Jackson County Historical Society — asserts: 217 North Main Street, Independence, Missouri; complex of the 1859 stone jail, the marshal’s residence built 1859-1860 attached to the front (west) facade, the jail annex of 1900-1901 at the rear, and a one-room frame schoolhouse recently moved onto the southeast quadrant; period 1859-1860; areas of significance architecture, education, industry, military, social/humanitarian, and “Law and Order”; marshal’s house a two-story Federal-style handmade-red-brick structure in running bond on a limestone foundation with door-window-window-window-door front rhythm, three-light transoms, 6-over-6 sash, wood louver shutters, north-south ridge roof, single chimney, southeast kitchen extension; stone jail of locally quarried rusticated ashlar limestone blocks approximately 24-28 inches wide, 1.5 feet high and 6 feet long doweled with 4-inch iron rods, six windows each on north and south walls with iron frames and sash, louvered bars on the first floor and strap-iron grid on the second, originally unglazed; the Jackson County Court ordered the jail built in 1859, replacing an 1841 brick building, itself the replacement for a log jail of 1827 that burned; original specifications survived and guided the restoration; used as a military prison and provost marshal’s headquarters by Federal troops during the Civil War; Battle of Independence (1862) and Battle of Westport (October 21-23, 1864) occurred in the vicinity; William Quantrill released from the jail by authorities in the winter of 1860, imprisoned following a border raid in a prelude to the Civil War; Frank James awaited trial at the jail after his 1882 surrender, with the marshal’s account book for the period in the Society’s collection; Rev. Abner Holton Deane imprisoned for refusing the oath of allegiance, portrait painted in jail by George Caleb Bingham, owned by William Jewell College, Liberty, Missouri; building expanded 1900-1901; jail function discontinued 1933; local American Legion post used the building 1941-1958 and announced intent to raze it, prompting the 1959 preservation effort; Harry S. Truman’s retirement to Independence and the Truman Library credited with awakening local historical interest; center-point coordinates 39° 05’ 56” N, 94° 24’ 55” W; approximately 0.22 acres. (55-page PDF; text extracted with PyMuPDF. OCR of the 1970 typescript is imperfect — figures re-keyed here should be spot-checked against the scan.) ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11 ↩12 ↩13 ↩14 ↩15 ↩16 ↩17 ↩18 ↩19 ↩20 ↩21 ↩22

  2. Jackson County Historical Society — “History of the Jail.” — asserts: constructed 1859 to a design by Asa Beebe Cross; the third Jackson County jail; a home for the jailer, an office for the county marshal and staff, and twelve limestone cells; brick structure added to the rear in 1907 to house chain gangs working on roads, sewers and other public projects; cost $11,844.20 in 1859, “the 2013 equivalent of $325,893.07”; listed as “County Jail” at 217 N. Main Street on the 1916 Sanborn map; jailer or deputy county marshal lived with his family in the brick home at the front, wife often cooked for prisoners; jailer in 1884 paid about $50 per month plus the use of the house; marshal an elected county position appointing deputies and jailers for two-year terms; marshal’s office had a separate entryway; six upstairs and six downstairs cells, two-foot limestone walls, a single kerosene hallway lamp, two doors per cell (grated iron and solid iron), grated window, no heating or cooling, some prisoners died of exposure; cells 6 by 9 feet designed for three, up to twenty during the Civil War; 1907 addition added twenty-eight cells; pre-war charges included horse racing on public streets, firing guns in town, operating a gaming house, assault and battery, disturbing the peace, disturbing a religious meeting, building a privy “not over a pit”; Civil War use as military prison and U.S. Provost Marshal’s office; women and children detained during Order No. 11 for aiding Confederate and guerrilla operatives; 2019 Historic Building Assessment and Structural Study by Strata Architecture and Preservation. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11 ↩12 ↩13 ↩14 ↩15

  3. Jackson County Historical Society — “History of the Jail” and “Faces of the Jail.” and jchs.org — asserts: Frank James held 112 days accused of the murder of Captain John Sheets in a Gallatin, Missouri robbery, after Jesse James was killed by Robert Ford in St. Joseph in April 1882 and Frank negotiated surrender terms with Governor Thomas Crittenden; James’s cell furnished with Brussels carpet, fine furniture and paintings, free run of the jail, card games at night, acquitted of every charge, died 18 February 1915; William Clarke Quantrill, aged 19, imprisoned 10 December 1860 for “protective security” by Sheriff Burrus for one night after betraying a Kansas Quaker abolitionist raid on Morgan Walker’s farm, released through Andrew Walker, who talked down a crowd on Independence Square that wanted to hang him; Granville Dyson Page the first Jackson County Marshal, appointed 1871 when the county created the position; Henry Bugler the first jailer, shot and killed 13 June 1866 by six or seven armed horsemen demanding the release of prisoner Joe Perry, his six-year-old son wounded in the wrist; Mary Bugler finished her husband’s term; Asa Beebe Cross born New Jersey 9 December 1826, trained in Philadelphia and St. Louis, arrived in Kansas City 1857, estimated more than 1,000 structures in Jackson County, died 18 August 1894, works including the John Wornall House, Union Depot (1878), the Vaile Mansion (1881), Gillis Opera House (1883); Rev. Abner Deane jailed for refusing the “Ironclad Oath,” portrait painted by George Caleb Bingham; William Bullitt Howard, founder of Lee’s Summit, held one month; the Howard School House donated by the Howard family in 1960 and placed in the courtyard; two executions — Edward Sneed, hanged 1887 for the 1884 murder of Orleans Loomis on gallows erected in what is now the courtyard, and Harry Jones, hanged inside from the second floor; James Brown pardoned before a third; the Ross family lived at the jail 1887-1897 while James Bruce Ross was marshal; jail closed March 1920 by Judge Ralph Latshaw, reopened 1921 by Marshal John L. Miles for Prohibition prisoners, decommissioned 1933; building then passed to the Community Welfare League and used for WPA sewing, canning and ironing work; American Legion Tirey J. Ford Post 21 met there; JCHS acquired the jail in 1958 and reopened it in 1959. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11 ↩12 ↩13 ↩14 ↩15 ↩16 ↩17 ↩18 ↩19 ↩20 ↩21 ↩22 ↩23

  4. Jackson County Historical Society — “JCHS Receives $100,000 Grant From Sunderland Foundation For 1859 Jail, Marshal’s Home & Museum” (7 July 2021) — asserts: $100,000 Sunderland Foundation grant for continuing restoration; an earlier $75,000 grant funded the 2019 STRATA Architecture + Preservation historic building assessment; subsequent work included replacing west-facing upper-level windows and repairing masonry and floor joists in the Marshal’s Home; Independence Heritage Commission’s Preserve Independence Award in May 2021; after word spread in 1958 that the jail could be demolished, residents rallied and former President Harry Truman called Hallmark Cards founder Joyce Hall to secure a first $1,000 pledge; the Society acquired, restored and opened the building to the public in 1959; listed on the National Register in 1970; “Save the Jail” campaign at www.jchs.org/savethejail. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  5. Wikipedia — “Jackson County Jail and Marshal’s House.” — asserts: 217 N. Main St., Independence, Missouri; built 1859; architecture Federal; added to the National Register 15 June 1970; reference number 70000333; area 0.2 acre; coordinates 39°5’36”N 94°24’55”W; designed by A. B. Cross; front is a home for the jailer, rear has twelve limestone cells; brick structure added to the rear in 1907; decommissioned and replaced in 1933; six upstairs and six downstairs cells with two-foot limestone walls, single kerosene hallway lamp, two doors per cell, grated-iron window, unheated, some prisoners died of exposure; cells 6 by 9 feet for three prisoners, up to twenty during the Civil War; Quantrill briefly incarcerated (placed by the article “during the American Civil War”); Frank James “spent almost six months here in the 1880s,” cell preserved as it was. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  6. Jackson County Historical Society — “Faces of the Jail” (Asa Beebe Cross entry) — asserts: biography and attributed works of Asa Beebe Cross as summarized in 3. ↩

  7. Visit Independence — “1859 Jail, Marshal’s Home & Museum.” — asserts: 217 N. Main Street, Independence, Missouri (listing gives ZIP 64055); phone (816) 612-7979; preserved limestone jail with original stone cells and an adjoining marshal’s residence, toured as part of the historic homes experience; family friendly, parking available. ↩ ↩2

  8. Jackson County Historical Society e-Journal — Brian Burnes, “New Stage of 1859 Jail Preservation and Restoration Breaks Ground” (14 June 2024) — asserts: a six-month, $300,000 project began in May 2024 to address foundation issues and stabilize the northwest corner, conducted by Pishny Restoration Services of Lenexa; the building opened for its annual visitors season in April and remained accessible during the work; the marshal’s office occupies the northwest corner of the first floor and was closed to entry; the structure sits just northeast of Independence Square at 217 N. Main St.; JCHS owns and operates it; Gloria Smith JCHS president; the 2019 STRATA assessment preceded the project. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  9. Jackson County Historical Society — site footer / contact — asserts: Jackson County Historical Society, 112 W. Lexington Ave., Suite 120, Independence, MO 64050; (816) 461-1897; info@jchs.org; Historic Truman Courthouse hours Tuesday-Friday 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. ↩ ↩2

  10. Jackson County Historical Society — events calendar, “1859 Jail Museum: Jail Haunts” (October 2025 dates) — asserts: the Society programs paranormal-themed “Jail Haunts” events at the museum in October. ↩

See also

Categories
  • Concept
  • Building
  • Museum
  • Civic
  • Civil War

On the record — ks.city/wiki/buildings/1859-jail-marshals-home-and-museum · last revised 2026-08-13