Jesse James farm

This is one of the places we went today, the Jesse James farm; it was our original destination.


That's where Jesse's grave used to be. His body now rests in a graveyard in Kearney, Missouri. That isn't his original tombstone; it's a replica. The original was chipped away by tourists a piece at a time. Everybody wanted a souvenir.

This shows the oldest part of the house, the cabin. When Cliff and I last visited here in the early 70's, it was still owned by the James family, and you could only peek in the windows of this section because it was in an advanced stage of decay. Today we actually went inside it.

This is Jesse's saddle.

This is the front of the house.

Of course this is not peak season for places like this, so it was just us and two other people, a couple from South Carolina.

Often in museums like this, the furnishings are not original to the place, but are simply selected because they're the proper age. Because this farm was owned by the James family until the mid-seventies (when they turned it over to the county), and because it has been shown as a tourist attraction ever since Jesse's mother started taking in money from curious folks, the furnishings are original. I was very impressed by that.

It was a perfect day for a ride; the predicted clouds didn't set in until well after noon and it wasn't windy.

Good times indeed. And on the way home, we found more places of interest!