The Harry S. Truman National Historic Site (officially styled without the period after the S[3][4]) preserves the longtime home of Harry S. Truman, the thirty-third president of the United States, as well as other properties associated with him in the Kansas City, Missouri metropolitan area. The site is operated by the National Park Service, with its centerpieces being the Truman Home in Independence and the Truman Farm Home in Grandview. It also includes the Noland home of Truman's cousins, and the George and Frank Wallace homes of Bess Truman's brothers. The site was designated a National Historic Site on May 23, 1983.[5]
The Truman Home (earlier known as the Gates–Wallace home), 219 North Delaware Street, Independence, Missouri, was the home of Harry S. Truman from the time of his marriage to Bess Wallace on June 28, 1919, until his death on December 26, 1972. Bess Truman's maternal grandfather, George Porterfield Gates, built the house between the years 1867 and 1885.
After Bess's father, David Willock Wallace, committed suicide in 1903, she and her mother and brothers moved into the house with Bess's grandparents, George and Elizabeth Gates. At the time Harry and Bess married in 1919, Harry was putting all of his money into his business partnership, a men's clothing store called Truman & Jacobson at 104 West 12th Street in downtown Kansas City, so living at the Wallace home made good financial sense.
After Truman's haberdashery failed in 1922, he and his wife continued to live in the house to save money while he paid his debts. After being elected to the Senate in 1935, he moved to Washington, D.C., with his wife and daughter. Whenever they came back to Missouri, the house at 219 N. Delaware was their home.
After he retired in 1953, until the Truman Library was opened on July 6, 1957, the Truman Home served as Truman's personal office. Bess lived in the home until her death in 1982, and she bequeathed the property to the National Park Service.[6] The home was closed for 8 months in 2009-10 for a $1.1 million renovation that improved fire safety, visitor comfort and structural stability.[7]
The Truman Home offers a glimpse at the personal life of the 33rd President of the United States, particularly the simple life the family enjoyed in Independence before and after Harry's eight years as president. The Trumans' only child, Mary Margaret, was born in the home on February 17, 1924. The site also includes the two adjacent homes of Mrs. Truman's brothers, and, across Delaware Street, the Noland Home, where the President's favorite aunt and cousins lived. The site operates a visitor center, located inside an historic firehouse, in downtown Independence. NPS park ranger-interpreters lead guided tours of the home on a regular basis, providing a look at the home much as the Truman family left it.[8]
The second-floor bedroom of Harry and Bess Truman, in their home in Independence, Missouri.
The second floor of the home has never been open to the public – Bess wrote into her will that to protect her family's privacy, the second floor was to remain closed until the death of her daughter, Margaret. Though Margaret died in 2008, the NPS has maintained the closure in order to best preserve the home.[6] A photo tour of the closed rooms, including Harry and Bess's bedroom, is available.
On display in the ground floor of the home is the Steinway piano Truman originally purchased as a Christmas present for Margaret, and which was played by Truman in the White House; a portion of the Trumans' extensive personal library (including the mysteries preferred by Bess); the family record collection; the official White House portrait of the First Lady (the one in Washington D.C., is a copy): and paintings including a panorama of Athens, Greece, a "primitive" of Key West featuring palm trees and a backward-looking donkey, and a canvas entitled "Swan River." The fireplace is framed with tiles depicting a fanciful Middle Eastern desert landscape with tents and minarets, likely inspired by One Thousand and One Nights.
Truman is one of the few Presidents who never owned his own home prior to his time in office. He lived with his parents until he married, then in the Wallace House, in rented apartments and houses in Washington (including 4701 Connecticut Avenue), in Blair House (the official state visitors residence), and in the White House, but it was not until July 1953, following his term of office and the December 1952 death of Madge Gates Wallace, that Harry and Bess Truman purchased the home at 219 North Delaware Street.
The Harry S. Truman Farm Home is located 15 miles (24km) away from Independence in Grandview, Missouri. A National Historic Landmark, the farmhouse at 12301 Blue Ridge Blvd. was built in 1894 by Harry Truman's maternal grandmother, and is the centerpiece of a 5.25 acres (2.12ha) remnant of the family's former 600-acre (240ha) farm. Truman worked the farm as a young man, from 1906 to 1917. It was here, said his mother, that Harry got his "common sense." There is no visitor center on the site, but the grounds are open year-round for self-guided tours, and an audio tour is available.[8] Guided tours were formerly conducted during the summer, but were cancelled in 2013 due to sequestration-related budget cuts.[9]
The site consists of a two-story farm house; a reconstructed smokehouse; the Grandview post office-turned-garage (Truman moved it to the farm to store his 1911 Stafford automobile); a restored box wagon once used on the farm; and several stone fence posts marking the original boundaries of the farm, plus other original and reconstructed buildings.
After Truman returned to private life he sold portions of the farm for the Truman Corners Shopping Center as well as other Kansas City suburban development.
Independence is the fifth-largest city in Missouri and the county seat of Jackson County. Independence is a satellite city of Kansas City, Missouri, and is the largest suburb on the Missouri side of the Kansas City metropolitan area. In 2020, it had a total population of 123,011.
Elizabeth Virginia Truman was the wife of President Harry S. Truman and the first lady of the United States from 1945 to 1953. She also served as the second lady of the United States from January to April 1945. She currently holds the record of longest-lived first lady and longest-lived second lady at 97 years, 247 days.
Mary Margaret Truman Daniel was an American classical soprano, actress, journalist, radio and television personality, writer, and New York socialite. She was the only child of President Harry S. Truman and First Lady Bess Truman. While her father was president during the years 1945 to 1953, Margaret regularly accompanied him on campaign trips, such as the 1948 countrywide whistle-stop campaign lasting several weeks. She also appeared at important White House and political events during those years, being a favorite with the media.
The Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum is the presidential library and resting place of Harry S. Truman, the 33rd president of the United States (1945–1953), his wife Bess and daughter Margaret, and is located on U.S. Highway 24 in Independence, Missouri. It was the first presidential library to be created under the provisions of the 1955 Presidential Libraries Act, and is one of thirteen presidential libraries administered by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site, located at 81 Carl Sandburg Lane near Hendersonville in the village of Flat Rock, North Carolina, preserves Connemara, the home of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and writer Carl Sandburg. Though a Midwesterner, Sandburg and his family moved to this home in 1945 for the peace and solitude required for his writing and the more than 30 acres (120,000 m2) of pastureland required for his wife, Lilian, to raise her champion dairy goats. Sandburg spent the last twenty-two years of his life on this farm and published more than a third of his works while he resided here.
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin D. Roosevelt and as a United States senator from Missouri from 1935 to January 1945. Assuming the presidency after Roosevelt's death, Truman implemented the Marshall Plan to rebuild the economy of Western Europe and established both the Truman Doctrine and NATO to contain the expansion of Soviet communism. He proposed numerous liberal domestic reforms, but few were enacted by the conservative coalition that dominated the Congress.
William Chrisman High School is a high school located in Independence, Missouri, United States, as part of the Independence School District.
The Harry S. Truman Little White House in Key West, Florida was the winter White House for President Harry S. Truman for 175 days during 11 visits. The house is located in the Truman Annex neighborhood of Old Town, Key West.
The Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site, previously known as the Benjamin Harrison Home, is the former home of the twenty-third president of the United States, Benjamin Harrison. It is in the Old Northside Historic District of Indianapolis, Indiana. Harrison's 16-room house was built from 1874 to 1875. It was from the front porch of the house that Harrison instituted his famous Front Porch Campaign in the 1888 United States presidential campaign, often speaking to crowds on the street. In 1896, Harrison renovated the house and added electricity. He died there in a second-story bedroom in 1901. Today it is owned by the Arthur Jordan Foundation and operated as a museum to the former president by the Benjamin Harrison Foundation.
The Harry S. Truman Farm Home, also known as the Solomon Young Farm, is a historic farm property at 12301 Blue Ridge Blvd in Grandview, Missouri. The farm property, first developed in the 1860s, was the residence of future U.S. president Harry S. Truman from 1906 to 1917. The house is part of Harry S. Truman National Historic Site, and is a designated National Historic Landmark.
The Harry S. Truman Historic District is a National Historic Landmark District encompassing sites closely associated with US President Harry S. Truman in Independence, Missouri. It includes the Truman Home at 219 North Delaware, Truman's home for much of his adult life and now a centerpiece of the Harry S. Truman National Historic Site, and the Truman Presidential Library. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1974. When first listed, the district included only the two buildings and a corridor joining them. It was substantially enlarged in 2011 to include more sites and the environment in which Truman operated while living in Independence.
The Jackson County Courthouse, also known as the Truman Courthouse, is a historic courthouse in Independence, Missouri.
The Democratic Party's 1944 nomination for Vice President of the United States was determined at the 1944 Democratic National Convention, on July 21, 1944. U.S. Senator Harry S. Truman from Missouri was nominated to be President Franklin D. Roosevelt's running-mate in his bid to be re-elected for a fourth term.
The Harry S Truman Birthplace State Historic Site is a state-owned property in Lamar, Barton County, Missouri, maintained by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, preserving the 1+1⁄2-story childhood home of Harry S. Truman, the 33rd President of the United States. The future president was born here on May 8, 1884, in the downstairs southwest bedroom. The home was purchased by the state in 1957 and dedicated as a historic site in 1959 at a ceremony attended by Truman himself. The site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1969.
Martha Ellen Young Truman was the mother of U.S. president Harry Truman, the paternal grandmother of Margaret Truman, and the mother-in-law of Bess Truman.
Truman House may refer to:
Trinity Episcopal Church is a historic church at 409 North Liberty Street in Independence, Missouri.
David Frederick Wallace was an architect and brother of First Lady of the United States Bess Truman.
Charles Blevins Davis was an American playwright and theatrical producer.
Clifton Truman Daniel is an American writer and public relations executive who is the oldest grandson of former United States President Harry S. Truman and First Lady Bess Truman. He is a son of the late E. Clifton Daniel Jr., former managing editor of The New York Times, and best-selling mystery writer Margaret Truman.
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