What to See in Joplin - Top Sights and Attractions

Prominent inventor's home, now a park. George Washington Carver National Monument is a unit of the National Park Service in Newton County, Missouri. The national monument was founded on July 14, 1943, by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who dedicated $30,000 to the monument. It was the first national monument dedicated to an African American and first to a non-president.

The site preserves of the boyhood home of George Washington Carver, as well as the 1881 Moses Carver house and the Carver cemetery. His boyhood home consists of rolling hills, woodlands, and prairies. The 240-acre (97 ha) park has a 3⁄4-mile (1.2 km) nature trail, film, museum, and an interactive exhibit area for students.

The park is two miles west of Diamond along Missouri Route V and approximately ten miles southeast of Joplin.

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966.^[1]

Nature preserve in Joplin, Missouri. Wildcat Glades Conservation and Audubon Center was an Audubon owned and operated nature center located in a protected area in Joplin, Missouri. It was an Audubon sanctioned environmental education and conservation facility that protected the last remaining globally unique chert glades, as well as other natural resources of the biologically diverse Spring River watershed. Located at the confluence of Silver and Shoal Creeks, the center, now operated by the State of Missouri, showcases plants and animals found on the chert glades and surrounding aquatic and woodland savanna habitats. Chert glades, named after the bedrock on which they have formed, host a unique assemblage of plants and animals that may be found elsewhere in the world, but not typically found together as they are at Wildcat Park. A variety of plants and animals found in surrounding caves, prairie-savanna, riparian corridor, and oak/hickory woodlands converge here for an unusual suite of biological diversity that was being documented, monitored, and protected through education and outreach to the surrounding community and region. The center was a result of a nearly $6 million partnership project of the National Audubon Society, City of Joplin, and Missouri Department of Conservation. The center was one of two Audubon Centers managed by Audubon Missouri, a state office the National Audubon Society. The Audubon Center at Riverlands is located in north St. Louis on the Mississippi river, near its confluence with the Missouri river.

In July, 2018, the National Audubon Society withdrew from the agreement with the city of Joplin and the Missouri Department of Conservation and turned over the facility and lease to the state of Missouri. The facility and site is currently now more properly funded and managed by the Missouri Department of Conservation.^[2]

The Bonnie and Clyde Garage Apartment is located at 3347+1⁄2 Oak Ridge Drive in Joplin, Newton County, Missouri, though it actually fronts on 34th Street. The apartment was the location where the Barrow Gang hid out after a series of robberies in Missouri and neighboring states. After twelve days, neighbors reported suspicious behavior, and on April 13, 1933, the Joplin Police Department raided the apartment. Two of the police officers were killed by the fleeing fugitives. Undeveloped photographs, left behind by the gang, helped the authorities eventually stop the gang. Stolen merchandise conclusively tied the gang to a robbery in Joplin during their stay there. It was built about 1927, and is a two-story building on a poured concrete foundation. It has a gently pitched hipped roof and exposed rafter ends in the American Craftsman style.

The property was added to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) on May 15, 2009 and the listing was announced as the featured listing in the National Park Service's weekly list of May 22, 2009.^[3]

Building. St. Peter the Apostle Catholic Church and Rectory is a historic Roman Catholic church and rectory located at 812 Pearl Street in Joplin, Jasper County, Missouri. The church was built in 1906, and is a Late Gothic Revival style building constructed of Carthage limestone. It measures 63 feet, 6 inches, by 122 feet, 8 inches and features circular windows; tracery; Gothic arched windows and doors; and the triple portal entry. The rectory was built in 1917, and is a two-story Prairie School style dwelling with a finished basement. It is constructed of Carthage limestone and has a low pitched, hipped roof with wide overhang. Also on the property is a contributing concrete block garage.

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991 as a national historic district.^[5]

Joplin Downtown Historic District is a national historic district located at Joplin, Jasper County, Missouri. The district encompasses 48 contributing buildings in the central business district of Joplin. It developed between about 1883 and 1958 and includes representative examples of Mission Revival, Art Deco, and Modern Movement style architecture. The district includes the previously listed Fifth and Main Historic District, Newman Brothers Building, Fox Theater, and St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad Building. Other notable buildings include the Liberty Building, Cunningham Bank / Quinby Building, Model Clothing Store Building, Lichliter-Kassab Building, Zelleken Block, Muenning Building, and Frank Hollcroft Livery Building.

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.^[6]