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2025 Preserve Missouri Award
Honored by Missouri Preservation in its annual Honor Awards for outstanding historic preservation in Missouri.
The c. 1901 City Hall & Jailhouse is notable as the oldest known city office building in Columbia, Missouri. It housed the city hall, police department, and the city’s first fire department from 1901, when it was first built, until approximately 1907; it later functioned as office and retail space. After being under-utilized for years and eventually left vacant, in 2022 the building was purchased by a couple with a number of other successful historic rehabs in downtown Columbia, John and Vicki Ott. This project was managed by their son, Tanner, who has joined the family business. The masonry throughout the building and on the exterior was in poor condition, which called for extensive repointing and other repairs. Removal of paint on the front wall required numerous applications of paint stripper to avoid damaging the historic material. Missing and deteriorated windows were replaced with clad wood windows with historically correct profiles. Vertical bars and steel interior shutters from the original jail windows were retained and restored. Inside the building, remnants of intact historic mill work were used as a pattern for the replication of missing features such as beadboard wainscot on the first floor. This rehabilitation project used both state and federal historic tax credits to return the building to its original commercial function, and now houses a popular restaurant on the ground floor and legal offices on the second.
Meet Joe and Dan
The Columbia Fire Department was organized in April 1901 under Chief George Klingbell and made its first headquarters here. Horses Joe and Dan pulled the new fire wagon, which was kept in the brick work house behind city hall.
Photo: Columbia Fire Department, ca. 1901, State Historical Society of Missouri
- 1901Fire department organized
- 1,500 ftof hose on the wagon
- 2extension ladders, 30 ft & 20 ft
- 3chemical extinguishers
Columbia’s First City Hall
“Council Room, Police Court, Marshal’s Office, Fire Department, Calaboose and Rock-Pile all Under One Roof.”The Columbia Missouri Herald, 1901
Local businessman Henry H. Tandy built the two-story brick building on Ninth Street in the summer of 1901, and the City of Columbia moved in as its first tenant. By September the brand-new Columbia Daily Tribune was reporting on a “new and commodious city hall.”
It is the oldest known city office building in Columbia, and a contributing building in the Downtown Columbia Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.
Everything Under One Roof
- First floorPolice chief’s office, detention room, fire department and a fire-proof vault
- The cellsFour double cells of hardened steel, where “not a piece of wood is exposed”
- Out backA brick work house and yard, walled in twelve feet high
- UpstairsCouncil chamber, police court and the city clerk’s office
“The walls are of brick, the doors iron, the floor granitoid, and the 4 double cells of hardened steel.”Columbia Herald-Statesman, Aug. 23, 1901
A Building With Many Lives
- 1895
An empty lot
Only a small frame building stands on the site.
- 1901
City hall opens
Built by Henry H. Tandy between June and September. The lot’s assessed value jumps from $700 to $6,500.
- 1902
On the map
The Sanborn fire insurance map shows City Hall & Jail, plus a work house holding two hose reels and two horses.
- 1908
City hall moves on
City offices relocate to Courthouse Square at Walnut & Seventh. The work house is torn down and a third bay is added to the front.
- 1914
A free clinic
The city rents rooms for a Free Medical Dispensary, staffed by volunteer doctors and dentists and run by the Charity Organization Society.
- 1910s–60s
Main street workhorse
Plumbers, a cigar maker, a coal company, a tailor and second-hand clothing shops all call it home.
- ca. 1979
A-1 Electronics
A TV repair shop and D.W. Ditty’s Mercantile fill the storefronts.
- 2022
A new chapter
After years sitting vacant, Alley A Realty acquires the building and begins a historic rehabilitation.
- 2024
Back in business
Restored and reopened with a restaurant on the ground floor and offices upstairs. In 2025 the project earned a Preserve Missouri Award.
Stories From the Old City Jail
A few favorite finds from Columbia’s early newspapers. Tap any clipping to read it up close.
He took the whole library with him
Prisoner Tom Harris slipped out through the jail’s roof skylight one afternoon, taking every newspaper, yellow-backed novel and Nick Carter magazine he could carry. “Great is their indignation,” the paper reported of the inmates left behind. Months later, Harris was spotted back in town and rearrested to finish his sentence.
Historic clippings are shown as originally printed and reflect the language of their time. Sources: Newspapers.com and the State Historical Society of Missouri; National Park Service Historic Preservation Certification Application, Part 1 (2022).
Special ThanksTo Stephen Bybee and Deb Sheals for gathering much of this historic research.
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