Under $75K Thursday - Historic circa 1912 Brick Foursquare in St. Joe, MO Under $70K

OHU50K Notes $69,900 Purchase Price

The charming circa 1912 brick foursquare was built by the innovative local St. Joe contractor Henry Kimmet. Kimmet is known for creating the Kimmet plaster board, a form of sheet rock. This four bedroom, one bath house was one of three that Kimmet built on N. 17th Street as income-producing properties.

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Henry Kimmet built the house at 113 N. 17th Street in 1912 as a rental property. Over the more than a century of its life, this solid brick house in a wonderful residential neighborhood has been home to a wide range of families. It stands ready to provide a welcoming home for more families for another century.

Listing
4 bed
1 bath
930 sqft
Build date 1912

Family History

“The first tenant in the home was John T. Cowles, his wife Agnes and their small son John E. Cowles was the superintendent of the Morris & Co. Packing House. The family lived here from 1913 to 1914. They moved shortly after he retired from Morris and took a new position in Kansas City.

In 1915, the colorful Russian immigrant Max Geller moved his family into the home. The neighbors in this quiet respectable neighborhood must have been a bit concerned when they learned who their new neighbor was. Max was well known for his connections to gambling in the city, and he was not always on the right side of the law. In 1895 he was arrested for assault and battery and in 1914 he was one of 75 people summoned before the grand jury investigating illegal gambling here.

One of the iconic merchant families of St. Joseph is the Leibowitz family – the Leibowitz Men’s Clothing Store is still in operation at East Hills Mall. In the first half of the 1920s, Joseph W. Leibowitz, who founded the clothing store in 1912, rented the house with his wife Esther. Joseph immigrated from Crackow which was then in Austria in 1893.

When the Leibowitzs moved out of the home, Dr. John Henry Sampson and his wife Mary moved in. Dr. Sampson was a well-respected physician and surgeon who had moved to St. Joseph and opened his practice in 1896. Dr. and Mrs. Sampson lived at 113 N. 17th St. from 1928 to 1932.

The next in the line of tenants was Charles O. Pettigrew, the Vice President and Treasurer of the St. Francis Hotel Co., who brought his family to live here from 1933 to 1937, before he left St. Joseph to manage a hotel in Pasadena, CA. His son, Charles Jr. was in the starting lineup of the Central High School Football team.

For nearly two decades from 1946 to 1965, Edwin A. Monks and his wife Agnes made their home on N. 17th St. Edwin was the manager of Joe Rosen Haberdashery, located on Felix St. Before going to work for Joe Rosen, he was associated with the Block Brothers Store.” Per Historic St. Joe Emporium