The early 20th-century building will be repaired and may one day be rehabbed as a restaurant, the museum says. (Paul Willham)

This winter almost claimed a century-old building in St. Joseph, Mo., the town where the Pony Express began in 1860.

Part of the south wall of a brick building owned by the Pony Express National Museum collapsed on Feb. 4, forcing the city to condemn the structure.

"We're planning on repairing it," says Cindy Daffron, director of the museum, which uses the building for storage. "It's a building that [the museum's board of trustees] really wanted to keep."

The museum itself exists because locals fought in the 1950s to save the deteriorating Pikes Peak Stables, the starting point of the first Pony Express ride.

Insurance money will cover the cost of repairing the wall, whose water-damaged mortar caused the collapse, Daffron says. Work will begin as soon as the museum gathers estimates for the project.

Daffron hopes to turn the building into a restaurant or rental facility someday, especially since its Prohibition-era bar is intact. "There were hopes down the road to refurbish the building if the downtown revitalized."

St. Joseph, located an hour north of Kansas City, is also famous as the town where outlaw Jesse James, who settled there for one year, was shot and killed in 1882.

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