The Bossier-Shaw House Site Office and Interpretive Center – Missouri Department of Natural Resources’ Gateway to Sainte Geneviève’s Layered History Most historic site visitor centers occupy modern buildings constructed specifically for administrative functions—climate-controlled boxes with exhibit spaces designed from the beginning for interpretive displays. The Bossier-Shaw House operates differently. This is a genuine 1819 building constructed by Jean-Baptiste Bossier as a storehouse for his mercantile business, later expanded by Dr. Benjamin Shaw into a residence, and transformed in the 1930s into the headquarters for the Ste. Genevieve Art Colony—a radical gathering of Depression-era artists including Thomas Hart Benton, Joe Jones, Jessie Beard Rickly, and Aimee Schweig who captured tenant farmers’ encampments, lime kiln workers, sharecroppers, and the human condition in ways that established this small Missouri river town as “the Mecca of Midwestern art.” Today, operated by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources as the site office and interpretive center for the Felix Vallé State Historic Site complex, the Bossier-Shaw House hosts rotating exhibits throughout the year that explore the area’s history in the context of broader Missouri heritage, maintains a small gift shop featuring books on French Colonial history and colonial period items, and presides over the coolest feature
Read more…
