Around 1920 Lucius P. “Buck” Buchanan built an 11-room Spanish villa on a 230-acre wooded hillside overlooking Turkey Creek. Forty years later, the downtown Joplin Junior College was looking for additional land where it could launch a four-year college and build a new campus. George A. Spiva donated $100,000, and Joplin leaders raised another $205,000 to purchase the Mission Hill mansion and grounds. The former dwelling served as the first building occupied by the newly-established Missouri Southern State College [now University].