One Last Stop. The Jesse James Farm, Kearney Missouri.

Driving north from Little Rock, we passed through Kansas City, Missouri and saw a sign for the James Farm near Kearney. We turned off the Interstate and headed for the farm. Since we had seen one of Billy the Kid's possible final homes, why not check on Jesse James too?


At least there wouldn't be any controversy over who was buried here. That is the original footstone on the grave. The original headstone had been chipped away by souvenir hunters over the years.


There is a nice little museum and with an orientation movie and then a tour of the home. Here, on the left, is a photo of the home as it looked when it was taken over by the county for a museum in 1978. The photo on the right is from today.


I couldn't help but think that the original part of the house (the left half of it) was very similar to the homestead that my grandparents lived in up in northern Minnesota back in the early 1900s. It must have made for very long winters to live on a farm a long way from any neighbors.

And is it really Jesse James buried in that front yard? Well, Bison Bill tells us that there is another Jesse James grave located in Granbury, Texas. How did we ever miss that?