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PrintJOPLIN — As if on cue, a school of black bass swarmed around the small dock extending into the creek.
A second later, Casey Sade, 9, plunged in. While he splashed around, his father, Chris Sade, gestured toward the open fields surrounding their nearby home.
"Deer come in about twice a day. There's a mother and two fawns," Chris said.
Nearby, a treehouse in a towering Osage orange stands guard over the creek and fields.
"The thing we enjoy about the property is it is so private here ... in the center of the city," Chris said.
Carla Sade is quick to add, though, that there's another virtue to their location, especially with two daughters.
"We're only three minutes from the mall," she said.
The house that Chris and Carla put up for sale this week, at 2220 East Hampton Place, has something else of interest to buyers: It's one of Joplin's most historic properties. It and the five acres that come with it are the site of the old Schifferdecker Gardens, and the home itself may be one of the oldest in town.
Dates are murky. The sellers list a date for the house of 1847, but there's nothing documenting precisely when it was built. The little that is known is that Solomon Rothanbarger, who homesteaded along the north bank of Turkey Creek in the late 1830s, eventually bought land on the south side of the creek as well. Rothanbarger's brick home on the north side of Turkey Creek is still standing, too. Brad Belk, a Joplin historian, and Leslie Simpson, an expert on the area's historic buildings, both agree that the home was built before the Civil War, making it one of the area's few antebellum survivors.
The site cut a deeper groove in Joplin's memory when a German immigrant and beer brewer by the name of Charles Schifferdecker bought it in 1876.
"Charles Schifferdecker was a giant in our community," Belk noted.
He donated the land that later became Schifferdecker Park on the west side of town, as well as land and money to build many churches and the Scottish Rite Temple, and was the first president of First National Bank.
The land along Turkey Creek that Schifferdecker turned into a picnic ground became known as Schifferdecker Gardens, a public gathering place before there were city parks. It was there, on July 4, 1876, that many Joplin residents marked the country's centennial. Schifferdecker used caves and springs on the property to cool his beer for that event and others.
He eventually sold the home, moving to the corner of Fifth Street and Sergeant Avenue, where he built the "castle" that also survives.
Over the years, the house along Turkey Creek changed hands a number of times, and many of those owners left their mark.
"The original old house is still here. It was built upon," said Chris, who runs a custom carpentry business that specializes in restoration, remodeling and repairs.
When he bought the home three years ago, many of the floor joists were rotted and some of the floors were sagging. All of that had to be shored up, Chris said. He put new tile and maple cabinets in the kitchen and installed new heating, plumbing and electrical systems throughout the house. They put in custom woodwork but kept the original oak floors that were in part of the home.
"I just love historical houses. We bought it with the intention of fixing it up and selling it," Chris said.
Carla said they also enlarged the downstairs powder room, which incorporates the limestone bluff at the base of the house.
Today, they are asking $179,000 for the house and the five acres of land along the creek.
"We like living in an old house," Chris said. "It's got the squeaks and curves, but that's what you get living in an old house."
The house has three bedrooms, 1.5 baths and 1,720 square feet.
Kathleen Martz, a realtor with Charles Burt, said there is an option to buy another 13 adjacent acres that her father and mother own and that includes Castle Rock in Turkey Creek, another site that is woven into Joplin's memory. "My grandmother was baptized there," Martz said of Castle Rock, "along with many, many others."
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