Jesse James Home and Museum

History Tour: Legends of the Wild West

"This simple Missouri home went down in American history when the infamous Wild West bank robber Jesse James was gunned down inside.  Today, it holds a museum to James’ life and death inside, complete with a bullet hole in the wall that dates back to the shooting.  After a life full of criminal activity that made Jesse James famous in his own time, the outlaw eventually attempted to settle down (at least for a while) with his family in St. Joseph, Missouri. Despite being feared and renowned as maybe the most prolific criminal in American history to that point, James was also noted as a husband and father who took great care of his family. Unfortunately, by the time they settled in their Missouri home it was too late for any kind of peace. The $10,000 reward for James’ capture was just too sweet a pot for his accomplices to ignore. Finally, on April 3, 1882, one of James’ former partners in crime, Robert Ford, put a bullet in the back of James’ head right in his own home. When the disreputable Ford brought in James’ body to collect the reward, the authorities actually arrested him for murder. Ford would go on to die in a bar fight a few years later, remembered by few, loved by none. James, however, is still an American icon, and the former home where he was shot has become a museum to his legacy. The museum features artifacts from the James’ life such as one of his old guns and portraits of James. More items were added in the 1990s after James was exhumed to test whether his corpse was in fact his (it was), and now James’ coffin handles and some trinkets he was buried with are also on display. Possibly most interesting is the bullet hole in the wall that dates back to James’ killing. It was originally quite small, but has grown over the years as visitors have fiddled with it." - ATLAS_OBSCURA

"Located in St. Joseph, the Jesse James Home—operated by the Pony Express Historical Association—is a small but mighty museum that’s easily worth an hour’s time. It was here that the notorious outlaw Jesse James was shot and killed on April 3, 1882, after living a lawless career for 16 years. Today, the one-story, Greek Revival–style house is packed with artifacts, including the coffin handles from James’s grave, a small tie pin he was wearing the day he was killed, a bullet removed from his right lung, and a casting of his skull, showing the bullet hole behind his right ear."