New book details history of Joplin’s Connor Hotel

In its day, the Connor Hotel in Joplin was a center of the community and a place where the famous, the notorious and the influential gathered in Southwest Missouri.

It’s been 42 years since the Connor’s dramatic collapse on Nov. 11, 1978, the day before it was to be demolished with explosives, and the memory of the nine-story building and its influence on Joplin is beginning to fade.

Chad Stebbins, director of the Institute for International Studies at Missouri Southern State University, wanted to preserve that history, so he’s written a 192-page book called “Joplin’s Connor Hotel,” published by The History Press.

“I think without a doubt the Connor was the most important building in Joplin’s history, surpassing the Union Depot, Memorial Hall, the Newman Building,” Stebbins said. “Really everything of note or consequence that happened in Joplin’s history probably touched upon the Connor at some point. Even today, people are really still in anguish that the building was torn down to make way for the new public library.”

Joplin historian Brad Belk said the Connor Hotel is fading from Joplin’s collective memory and that Stebbins’ book is helping preserve that piece of history.

“Joplin’s Connor Hotel is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of southwestern Missouri,” Belk said. “Dr. Stebbins’ takes his reader on an extraordinary historical journey through Joplin’s past. The Connor Hotel is a fascinating story that needed to be recorded, and Chad did a fabulous job of filling in the blanks. He left no stone unturned as the narrative explores a wide assortment of little known, fun, and interesting facts.”

Center of culture

Completed in 1908, the eight-story building was built at the corner of Fourth and Main by Tom Connor, a native of Ohio who came to Joplin and made a fortune in the mining industry.

Connor died in 1907, and his heirs decided to name it after him when it was completed.

Stebbins said the corner of Fourth and Main was a center of culture and life for Joplin during the mining heyday.

“I wish I could have seen Joplin when downtown Joplin was the place to be, and certainly Fourth and Main was the heart of Joplin,” Stebbins said. “It’s kind of fun to stand at the corner of Fourth and Main and think about what life would have been like back then.

“You had the Connor on one corner, you had the Keystone Hotel on another corner, you had the First National Bank on another corner, and there was the Worth Block that contained the old House of Lords,” he said. “What an iconic corner to have all those famous, iconic structures there, but they all paled in comparison to the Connor, which really was the place to be in Joplin, for really about 50 years.”

Famous people, such as Elenor Roosevelt, Harry Truman and others stayed at the Connor while visiting Joplin. The classic lobby was a hub of activity during the hotel’s 50-year reign as the place to stay in Joplin.

“Everything of note or consequence seemed to happen at the Connor,” Stebbins said. “You could sit in the lobby of the Connor and watch Joplin go by. There were famous athletes, politicians, celebrities, even conmen and swindlers. Pretty Boy Floyd stayed there, Clyde Barrow once dropped off a suitcase there.

Stebbins said his book details the different owners of the hotel and their imprint on the business.

In 1923, Barney Allis, a hotelier who became famous as the owner of hotels in Kansas City, bought the Connor and nearly doubled the 200-room motel to around 400 rooms and an area for shops.

“It was in the annex that there was room for shops,” Stebbins said. “There was a bus terminal there. I think there were five restaurants operating in the Connor at one point.

“There’s a villain in the book named Charles Alberding, and his company, Alsonett Hotels, bought the Connor from Barney Allis in 1946, and they owned numerous hotels across the country including the Peabody in Memphis. Their business strategy was not to invest any money in their hotels but to milk any profit they could, not reinvest any money, use them as a tax write-off.” Eventually the hotels would be condemned or were torn down.

Stebbins said Alberding owned the Connor from 1946 to the early 1970s, during which time the structure decayed.

Other factors went into the decline of the Connor.

“I talk about the decline and fall of the Connor, and I largely attribute it to the construction of I-44 and the expansion of the Range Line motel district,” Stebbins said. “People wanted the amenities these modern motels were providing, such as swimming pools and where you could drive right up to your room, and the Connor could not compete with that.”

Building’s end

Stebbins said the Connor was closed as a hotel in 1969, and Burl Garvin and Randy Steele bought the building in 1971.

Stebbins singled out Garvin as a champion of the effort to save the building, but the hotel’s massive size worked against that goal.

“The Connor was almost too large to save,” Stebbins said. “With the annex that Barney Allis added, it had 400 rooms, and there are so many different angles. I’ve got a chapter on the Joplin becoming a convention city with the Connor hosting all these conventions in the 1930s and 1940s. But in the 1970s, the Connor had almost become a public embarrassment, just kind of silently lurking at Fourth and Main.”

Neely Myers, Garvin’s granddaughter and director of membership and marketing at the Carthage Chamber of Commerce, said she was 4 when the Connor collapsed, but she learned through her father that Garvin was passionate about saving it.

“He did everything that was in his power to do to save the Connor,” Myers said. “Ultimately the decision was made not to do that, and it was heartbreaking to the whole family. Passion can only go so far when the powers that be are not allies.”

Stebbins said the chapter about the building’s collapse was “the one I was looking least forward to writing.”

“I wasn’t all that interested in rehashing everything that had happened,” Stebbins said. “But then I realized, this happened in 1978, 42 years ago, and a lot of people were unaware of the details, the specifics, or didn’t remember them.”

Stebbins said the book is available on Amazon.com, or if people want an autographed copy, they can contact him at Missouri Southern at 625-9736 or by email at stebbins-c@mssu.edu. The cost on Amazon is $21.99.

Second book

Chad Stebbins said his book details the history of the Connor Hotel, but he didn’t have space to say much about the Connor’s builder and namesake, Tom Connor, so he wrote and self-published a second book. That book, “Tom Connor, Joplin’s Millionaire Zinc King,” includes details of his life such as his birth in Tiffin, Ohio, his childhood during the Civil War, when he worked as a newsboy, and his journey to Joplin, where he made his fortune in the mining industry. Connor died in 1907 at the age of 60. This book is also available on Amazon.com or by contacting Stebbins.