The Mission Hills Mansion, an 11-room house befitting Jay Gatsby, is the one element at Missouri Southern State University that connects old and new.
A $1.8 million renovation of the mansion, now known as the Ralph L. Gray Alumni Center, was completed in September 2010.
“The one thing about the university that is fabulous, in my mind, is the new alumni center,’’ said Brad Belk, who is writing a book about the 75-year history of the university. “It is the one thing that is still tangible from that setting when the decision was made to move the college from downtown to the Mission Hills farm.
“It’s like stepping back in time to the 1920s. You’re stepping back into the real history of the university when they used every building on that farm to create Missouri Southern. The mansion was used for classrooms and as a cafeteria. They made a bookstore out of the garage. They could not have done it without the mansion.’’
The mansion, the oldest building on campus, was completed in 1926 by Lucius P. “Buck’’ and Ethel Caywood Buchanan. It’s preservation has been a focus of attention since 1993 when Gail Renner, a retired history professor at Southern, put the finishing touches on a new book, “In Pursuit of Excellence,’’ which chronicled the first 50 years of the university. Proceeds from the sales of that book were set aside to help preserve the mansion.
From the time the Mission Hills farm was purchased, steps have been taken by the college to protect the mansion from significant wear, weathering and alteration. Leon Billingsly, the college’s first president, covered the mansion’s maple floors with carpet to protect them.
‘King of Miners’
Buchanan, known as “King of the Miners,’’ for his development of the Waco Mining Field, began building the mansion on a hill overlooking Turkey Creek in about 1920. He selected his home site on acreage he had previously mined as a young man.
Legend has it the Spanish Revival style mansion is a copy of a house Buchanan saw while on vacation in Puerto Rico. Local historians say they can only speculate about what Buchanan might have been doing in Puerto Rico during Prohibition.
Distinctive traits include stucco walls, arched doorways, clay tile roofs, wrought iron, and an elaborately tiled fountain and fireplaces. The walls of the sun room are made of panels of African mahogany.
Buchanan, who died of a heart attack in February 1939, was instrumental in establishing the Joplin Stockyards and was a generous donor to St. John’s Hospital.
His wife sold the property to Frank and Juanita Wallower in 1940. Wallower, a mining capitalist from Harrisburg, Pa., owned the Golden Rod Mine near Cardin, Okla. Wallower’s father built the Keystone Hotel in downtown Joplin. On their estate, the Wallowers maintained a substantial herd of Jersey cattle and prized Herefords.
That dairy barn would eventually become Missouri Southern’s first theater.
Frank Wallower left his mark on the local economy as well. He assisted in organizing the American Zinc Institute and served as national president in 1923. He became the director and general manager of the Southwest Missouri Railroad Co., an interurban electric line, which stretched from Carthage to Picher, Okla., connecting the mining towns of the Tri-State District. He later became president of Keystone Properties, the Keystone Laundry and Dry Cleaning and Tri-State Casualty Insurance Co.
The Wallowers moved from Mission Hills on Dec. 16, 1964.
That year, leaders of the local business community began looking for a new site for a college campus. A gift of $100,000 from George A. Spiva provided the needed catalyst to ignite the fundraising drive to purchase the new campus site. Additional donations came pouring in and by October of 1964, after only 90 days of solicitations, subscriptions exceeded the $300,000 goal.
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Related Photos
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Dennis Weaver Memorial Fountain and the Ralph L. Gray Alumni Center
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Joplin Junior College Letter Sweater
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Discussion
Mission Hills mansion connects old, new
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