To History Buffs, Missouri Is Truman Territory

Almost everywhere you go in this state--be it a school, hospital or park--there are tributes to Harry S. Truman, the 33rd President of the United States.

There are two Truman hospitals here, one named after his wife, Bess, and a high school named for both of them. Not surprisingly, the main street is named Truman Road.

In the depot of the local Amtrak station--the Harry S. Truman Station--are photographs from his whistle-stop campaign in 1948 and others showing the thousands who greeted Truman on his return home.

There’s even a Harry Truman Law Office Building here, though Truman wasn’t a lawyer. In fact, he never went to college.

Born in Lamar, Mo., on May 8, 1884, Truman was a dirt farmer until the age of 32. He worked the land with horse and plow for 13 years in Grandview, Mo., and later opened a haberdashery that failed, ran for public office, served as a county judge, U.S. senator and vice president before assuming the presidency.

He died in 1972 at 88. Bess Truman died 10 years later. She was 97. Both are buried in the courtyard of the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum.

A Truman Bequest

The 19th-Century Victorian house at 219 N. Delaware St., bequeathed to the American people by Bess Truman, had been the Trumans’ home since their marriage in 1919. During Truman’s years in office, it served as the summer White House.

Daughter Margaret was born in an upstairs bedroom in 1924. In the simple kitchen, linoleum was tacked to the floor by the former President. His hat, coat and umbrella hang on a rack, just as he left them after his last early morning walk. Truman lived there 20 years after leaving the White House.

An iron fence was built around the property after a woman was spotted picking tulips that Bess Truman had planted. The woman told the former First Lady she wanted the flowers as a souvenir. Still living next door is Mae Wallace, 93, Bess Truman’s sister-in-law.

Guided tours of the Truman house, operated by the National Park Service, are given to groups of eight, four times an hour.

The Jackson County Courthouse in Independence, where Truman served as judge from 1926 to 1934, has been restored to re-create the period. (A county judge here is comparable to a member of the Board of Supervisors in California.) Outside the courthouse is Gilbert Franklin’s life-sized statue of Truman dedicated by President Gerald R. Ford.

The Harry S. Truman historic district in Independence also includes a neighborhood of Victorian homes where the President took his daily walks, the church where he married and other buildings associated with the Trumans’ lives.

Interest in the Truman years continues to attract scholars to the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum here. Only a small fraction of the archives remains classified, according to director Benedict K. Zobrist, 62.

“The die was cast for the world in which we live today by many decisions Mr. Truman made that continue to be part of our history,” he said. “You cannot deal with China, the U.S.S.R., atomic energy, inflation and civil rights without going back to Harry Truman.”

Truman’s birthplace, a humble frame farmhouse, is now a state park and the Grandview farmhouse is a county park. Harry S. Truman Lake is a huge reservoir in the central part of the state embraced by the 14,040-acre Harry S. Truman State Park.

The 118,000-seat Harry S. Truman Sports Complex in Kansas City is the home of the Royals baseball team and the Chiefs football team.

The new Harry S. Truman State Office Building in Jefferson City, Missouri’s capital, houses more than 2,300 employees.