2658 Delmar
St. Louis, MO 63103
314-340-5790
Admission is $6 for all adults; parking is free and on-street.
https://mostateparks.com/park/scott-joplin-house-state-historic-site
Opened in 1991.
This historical house is significant as the only known surviving residence associated with African-American composer Scott Joplin (c. 1867-1917). Joplin lived here from 1900 to 1903. It was here that Joplin, the "King of Ragtime" wrote The Entertainer as well as other pieces. He, and for a time his girlfriend Belle, occupied the second floor on the left. Today you enter the building through the right door.
The building/museum is owned by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources and in 1976 was designated a National Historic Landmark.
Upon visiting the first thing on the tour is a 15-minute video about the life of Joplin and about the house.
Then the tour goes upstairs to where Joplin actually lived. The flat goes from the front to the back of the house and is actually rather spacious. There are three rooms, an alcove, a porch, and stairs to an unused attic.
All of the rooms are furnished with period furniture but none of the items actually belonged to Joplin. In addition there is no record of how the flat was furnished so pieces and placement today is all by assumption. The first room is furnished and decorated as a bedroom.
The bedroom has a wood-burning fireplace used for heat.
The adjoining room serves as a music room where Joplin would have taught students. It is warmed by a coal-burning fireplace. The portrait above the fireplace was taken in 1904 and is one of only 5 known portraits of Joplin.
The piano in this room is one of nine pianos owned by the site.
A small alcove next to the music room possibly housed his desk. It is known that Joplin did his composing at a desk rather than at a piano.
In the back of the flat is the kitchen. The ice box was literally that - it held ice to keep food cool.
This would have been the extant of the counter space though an eating table could also be used to prepare food.
And then there is the stove for cooking.
When Joplin lived there the house had neither electricity, central heat, nor running water. In restoring the house there are currently none of these utilities upstairs. Today the house still has some of the functioning gaslights that were used during Joplin's time.
On the main floor one room is devoted to his ragtime music. A player piano has a large choice of rolls to play his different rags.
The tour guide played two of Joplin's rags for us.
The walls include a timeline of his work that was published, mostly rags but some songs. He also composed two operas.
The lobby of the museum includes another period piano and this painting of Joplin.
One room has several visual displays about the life of Scot Joplin. In reality much that is written about Joplin is speculated so there is some question about the accuracy of the displays. For this reason our guide did not take us through this room. Joplin lived in Sedalia from 1897-1901.
He moved to St. Louis in 1901 to study under the guidance of the director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.
There has been some disagreement about how many of these three women Joplin actually married. Since this display was made proof has been found that he was not married to Belle, but was to the other two women.
Joplin died in New York City in a mental hospital where he was hospitalized due to symptoms brought on by syphilis.
Joplin was in St. Louis at the time of the 1904 World's Fair and composed The Cascades Rag in commemoration of the elaborate waterfall known as The Cascades.
The lobby includes some displays concerning the restoration of the building. The building was probably erected about 1860. In the 1970's it was saved from destruction by the local African American community. In 1983, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources made it the first state historic site in Missouri dedicated to the African-American heritage.
This building and the state-owned building to the left of it are the only buildings remaining in the neighborhood from the time that Joplin lived there. Across Delmar there are mostly empty lots. Restoration of Joplin's residence was a major project as the house was in very poor shape.
These before and after pictures show the backside of the house.
The lobby also has a gift shop which primarily sells books and music but also typical gift store items such as jewelry, postcards, and ornaments.
On the front lawn is a St. Louis 250 birthday cake that is devoted to Scott Joplin.
These banners are on display on lampposts on the block.
For lunch we drove just a few blocks to Pappy's Smokehouse with its many smokers out front.
Great menu!
Burnt Ends Platter with fried corn on the cob and slaw.
Special of the day - Pulled Rib Sandwich with the awesome corn!
Comments: This museum was an interesting place! When I called a few weeks prior to our scheduled visit I was told that they do 45-minute tours every hour on the hour. We arrived when they opened at 10:00 a.m. and upon paying our entrance fees started the tour by watching the video. One hour and 25 minutes later the quite-talkative guide was still talking to us and we had not even gone into the museum room! We were the only ones there so there was no need for them to stop our tour and start an 11:00 tour but based on what we were told we had not anticipated being there that long.
The guide is very dedicated to the history of Scott Joplin and continues to research Joplin, thus he often shared that the information in the museum (video, displays, etc.) is not accurate. It was evident that there are many holes in the history of Joplin - the information is just not available. But it was equally evident that the state, who owns the house/museum, has failed to update the site as they have learned more about Joplin. I got the impression that the museum has not changed since they opened it 23 years ago but I could be wrong about that.
The museum had no technology for visitors to use and other than the furnished rooms did not have many artifacts.
All that being said, I am glad that we went. We learned a lot about Joplin and about ragtime. The other period homes that we have toured were homes of wealthier people so it was interesting to see how a middle class African American lived in the early 1900's.
I had researched the house before we went and had read in two places that the house originally was about Joplin but had also become a museum about the African American life at the turn of the century in St. Louis. Wikipedia says: "At first it focused entirely on Joplin and ragtime music, ignoring the urban milieu which shaped his musical compositions. A newer heritage project has expanded coverage to include the more complex social history of black urban migration and the transformation of a multi-ethnic neighborhood to the contemporary community. Part of this diverse narrative now includes coverage of uncomfortable topics of racial oppression, poverty, sanitation, prostitution, and sexually transmitted diseases." In 2011 a paper was published entitled "Interpreting Uncomfortable History at the Scott Joplin House State Historic Site in St. Louis, Missouri." Interestingly we saw nothing there, nor for that matter heard nothing, about these "uncomfortable topics."
The trip to Pappy's for lunch was so worth it! We had thought that we would arrive before the busy lunch crowds about which we had heard, but the longer tour put us there right in the middle of lunch hour. Yes, there was a line in which we waited to place our order, but the food was delivered to us within two minutes after ordering. Unbelievable! They really know how to get people in and out. And the food was excellent. Everyone liked what they got. I can't wait to go back!
