Hello again and welcome back to
the second of a two-part program by
the National Park Service called
"Exploring Harry Truman's Hometown."
Again, I'm Jeff Wade. I'm a park
ranger at Harry S Truman National
Historic Site in Independence, Missouri.
In the first program, we talked about
what the National Park Service's
National Landmark Program is all about.
In this program, we're going to take
a close look at a particular one:
Harry S Truman Historic District
National Historic Landmark.
That's what the neighborhood around Harry
Truman's house is officially called.
This won't be so much of a
tour of the district,
but an analysis of its development.
Remember that National Historic Landmarks
are resources that are nationally
significant enough to be units of
the National Park System, but aren't.
Those are the key words right there.
"Resources" are the things that
are being preserved. "Nationally
significant" means that whatever
those resources are, they have
to have some meaning to everyone
in the United States.
There are five types of resources that
can be National Historic Landmarks.
The most common ones are "Buildings."
This is the Main Building of the Weston
State Hospital in West Virginia.
Weston State Hospital is the name
that started to be used in 1913.
Now that it's become a tourist attraction,
however, the owners are calling
it by it's original name,
the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum.
This is how I spend my vacations.
Some people go to the beach.
I go to asylums.
"Objects" are things that can be moved.
This is the USS Nautilus
submarine in Connecticut.
It was the first nuclear propelled submarine.
Harry Truman was in office when
construction was started, although it
wasn't finished until he left office.
He did, however,
go up to observe the construction. When
the pressure hull was still exposed,
he took a welding torch and
carved his initials on the bow.
You can't see them
because the light hull covers them,
There is a submarine
museum here
that has a display about Harry
Truman carving his initials.
"Structures" can be Landmarks.
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway
is historically significant.
It's the oldest, continuously operated
automobile race course anywhere,
and the Indy 500 is one of the
largest single-day spectator
sporting events in the world.
One of the reasons that so many
people see it is because the
Speedway can hold so many live
spectators.
I went to the 100th running of
the race and the announcer said
that the crowd was so big that
it made us the 54th largest city
in the United States that day.
They can also be "Sites."
This is the Beginning Point of the
Louisiana Purchase Land Survey. In 1815,
the survey crew arbitrarily
picked a spot to begin the survey.
They had no idea what the place
would be like when they got there.
I've worked as a land surveyor and I
can't imagine many places worse than this.
You can't even see the ground.
The last type of resource that
could be a National Historic
Landmark is the "Historic District."
This is the type of resource
we'll be talking about today.
This is Beale Street Historic
District in Memphis, Tennessee.
This is where the Blues developed.
The Blues is a unique genre of
music that is one of the few styles
of art that the United States has
contributed to the rest of the world.
Nothing like the Blues has developed
anywhere else other than the United States.
Historic districts are different from
other types of National Historic Landmarks
because in a historic district usually
no one resource is important by itself,
but collectively the resources create
an area that is nationally significant.
Often that national significance is
derived from an event that took place
there or the architecture of the area.
But in 1971, there was a historic district
established that was like no other.
Its national significance had nothing to
do with architecture or a specific event.
The significance was derived from
something much more ephemeral.
It was deemed nationally
significant because of the historic
district's association with a person.
That person was Harry S Truman.
The area was called Harry S Truman Historic
District National Historic Landmark.
There is a National Park unit
within the district. It's called Harry
S Truman National Historic Site.
That's the place where I work.
The Independence unit of the
historic site consists of four
homes connected to Harry Truman.
The one at the top left is the Truman Home.
The one at the bottom shows
the Wallace Homes
where two of Mrs. Truman's brothers
lived. And the one at the top right
is the Noland Home where Harry
Truman's aunt and uncle lived.
The Independence unit of Harry S Truman
National Historic Site is 1.41 acres in size.
It is surrounded, however,
by Harry S Truman Historic District
National Historical Landmark,
which is 153 acres in size.
Since National Historic Landmarks are
important enough to be National Parks,
that means that Harry S
Truman National Historic Site,
instead of being less than 1-1/2 acres,
could be all 153 acres.
But that's not feasible.
It's not realistic to think that
so many private homes, businesses,
churches, and government institutions
would be part of a National Park.
In a way,
it's just as well they aren't. This way,
the neighborhood and the commercial
district remain part of a
living neighborhood just like it
was when Harry Truman was alive.
This is why the National Landmark
Program is important because it
allows a place like this to be
preserved when the National Park
Service isn't able to do so.
You cannot separate Harry
Truman from his hometown.
He loved Independence, but he did not
think the town would last as he knew it.
In 1950, he wrote in a letter,
"The Independence that I knew in 1890 long
since disappeared in every particular.
The Independence I knew in
1928 has also disappeared,
and I suppose the one of the
present day will be a thing of
the past in another 20 years."
"Another 20 years" would put us up to 1970.
The president died in 1972, so he lived
long enough to see if he was right.
It turned out that in some ways he was right,
but in a lot of other ways he was wrong.
On November 11th in 1971,
the National Park Service
recognized a resource
in Independence called Harry
S Truman Historic District
National Historical Landmark.
In 1971, the district was only 51 acres
in size and contained 201 resources.
Most of these resources were
buildings such as private homes,
a couple of churches and a school.
The red dot on the map shows
you where Harry Truman's house is.
The original historic district
excluded several resources that
were important to the Truman story.
For instance, the Trinity Episcopal Church,
where Mr. and Mrs. Truman were
married, was not in the district.
Also not in the historic district
was the entire commercial area, as
well as the County Courthouse where
Truman began his political career.
And neither was the Truman Library.
So, on November 11th, 2011,
forty years after the original
district was established,
the district was expanded.
On the map you can see the size
of the new district with the
original district in black overlaid.
The red dot is Harry Truman's home.
The Historic District grew from 51
acres to 153 acres, and from
201 resources to 594 resources.
In general, that's an increase
of around 300% for both the area
and the number of resources.
Besides the main historic district,
there are three discontiguous areas.
I'll show you. One is right here.
There's one here, and
here, and we'll talk about those
as we go along.
Remember, as we discussed
in the first program,
the National Park Service cannot
declare a resource to be a National
Landmark without the owner's permission.
In this kind of case,
where there are multiple owners involved,
if the majority of private owners
object to Landmark designation,
the National Park Service
cannot designate the property.
Also remember that one of the rules of
the National Landmark Program is that
declaring a resource to be a National
Landmark does not give the National
Park Service any authority over the
owner's disposition of the resource.
So, by simply designating a resource to
be a Landmark does not guarantee any
preservation or protection of the resource.
The City of Independence, however,
did want to guarantee that the district
would not change in appearance.
So, here's what happened.
The National Park Service
designated the area Harry S
Truman Historic District.
The City of Independence designated an
area with a slightly different boundary
as Harry S. Truman Heritage District.
Notice how that period showed up
after the S in Harry S Truman's name?
The S in Harry S Truman's name
did not stand for anything.
His middle name was only one letter long,
so the S is not an abbreviation.
The National Park Service does
not use the period after it.
Almost everyone else, however, does,
such as the City of Independence
and the Harry S. Truman Presidential
Library and Museum.
That's why you won't see the period
in sites named by the National Park Service.
But you will see the period
almost everywhere else.
The city established its Heritage District
in 1974, two years after Harry Truman died.
Since it's part of the local government,
there is a Heritage Commission that can
apply and enforce standards to private
property within the local district.
If somebody wants to make some major
changes to their house, they have to run
it by the Heritage Commission first.
This way there is enforced
protection of the historic district.
The map shows the boundaries of
the City's heritage district.
And again, the red dot
shows Mr.
Truman's house.
So let's compare compare here.
That's the City's heritage district.
That's the National Park Service's
original 1971 historic district.
This shows the boundaries of the
new 2011 National Park Service's
expanded historic district.
Let's compare them in size.
That's the expanded district.
That's the original 1971 district.
And that's the City's 1974 heritage district.
You can see the City's heritage
district had almost the same boundary
as the original Park Service district,
but the Park Service district
now is obviously much larger.
Every time a Landmark is established,
there's something called a "nomination
form" that's written that is used to
describe and justify the national
significance of the resource.
The nomination form for the original
1971 district was only 12 pages long.
The one for the 2011 expanded
district is 253 pages long.
One of the things the nomination
does is outline the resource's
period of significance.
You could define "period of significance"
as the length of time when a property
was associated with important events,
activities, or persons, or attained the
characteristics that qualify it for
National Landmark status. Some sites,
like a Civil War battle, for instance,
may have a period of significance of
only one day if it only lasted one day.
In order to remain nationally significant,
the site would need to retain the
appearance it had on the day of the battle.
In the first program,
we talked about Harriet Beecher
Stowe's house in Brunswick,
Maine, where she lived from 1850 to 1852.
This was during the time
she wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
This means that the Harriet Beecher Stowe
House National Historic Landmark has a
period of significance from 1850 to 1852.
So, the house has to retain its 1850 to 1852
appearance to remain on the Landmark list.
Now, the nomination form for the Truman
district outlines the period of
significance as being from 1919 to 1971.
The nomination argues that the starting
date of 1919 is appropriate because that
is the year that Harry Truman married Bess
Wallace, moved into her family home, and
became a permanent resident of the district.
He was 35 years old.
The cut-off of 1971 was simply
that's because when the
nomination was written.
Mr. Truman didn't die until over
a year later in December of 1972.
At the time the nomination was written,
nobody knew how long he was going to live.
Usually these kinds of things don't
happen until after a person is dead.
So, I'm going to change this. For
the purposes of this program, I'm
going to claim that the period of
significance goes from 1890 to 1972.
1972 is the year that Mr. Truman died,
so that's definitely the end
of the period of significance.
He didn't move into the
district permanently until 1919,
but he moved to Independence
with his family
when he was only six years old.
That was in 1890.
During his teenage years, he did live
in the district. Before and after his
teenage years, his family lived in
other homes that are close to the
district but have been significantly
altered so that they no longer
retain their historic appearance.
But even when his family lived
outside the district,
they would have had to come
into the district frequently.
They would have had to come
in to go to church.
They would have had to come in to do their
shopping and all their other business.
Harry Truman's life would have
been focused on the district
even when he wasn't living in it.
So, for this program, I'm going to argue
that, even though he didn't permanently
move into the district until 1919,
his association with the district started
as soon as he moved to Independence,
which is in 1890.
I mentioned the two of Harry Truman's
homes as no longer retaining their
historic appearance due to alterations.
Not everything within the district's
boundaries have retained their
historic appearance either. When
we talk about historic appearance,
we refer to a resource as either
"contributing" or "noncontributing."
On this map, the green items
are contributing resources.
A contributing resource is
one that is associated with
Truman's life and Independence
during the district's period of
significance, 1890 to 1972, and retains
a high degree of historic integrity.
Consideration is given to the
many aspects of a resource that
define the characteristics
that define integrity.
For example, a resource's location,
design materials,
workmanship, setting, feeling, and association.
Those are characteristics
that define integrity.
A resource deemed contributing
may have undergone some changes
since the period of significance,
but it retains historic
integrity of location, setting,
feeling, and association.
In addition,
it retains its central design elements,
overall form, proportions, scale,
fenestration, and significant ornamentation,
as well as its important exterior materials.
So, the opposite of that, of course,
would be noncontributing resources.
The orange items on the map are the
district's noncontributing resources.
Noncontributing resources are those
that do not represent the historic
sense of Truman's hometown neighborhood,
that were constructed or created after
the period of significance, post-1972, or
existed during the period of significance
and have been substantially altered.
Noncontributing status could be manifested
in large-scale additions that are
visible from the public right-of-way,
significant changes in fenestration,
and the use of newer materials that
have destroyed the old or substantially
detract from the overall historic
character of a resource.
Let's take a closer look
at the nomination form.
This is an entry for 708 N Cottage Ave.
There are several things
the nomination tells us.
The house has the historic
name of the Sheldon House.
Now, that information is
derived from this part down here:
The history and significance
section at the bottom.
The nomination identifies
its architectural style and
provides some legal information.
The two items we're most interested
in today are the construction date,
right here, and the classification.
Up here you see here a construction
date of circa 1905.
The classification shows us that there
are two resources at this address.
The first is the house, which is said
to be contributing. Right here.
The house is contributing.
The alteration section
tells us that there is a garage
that is noncontributing because it was
built after the period of significance,
which means it was built after 1972,
the year of Harry Truman's death.
Take a closer look at the alteration section.
The alteration section lists changes
that the house has undergone since 1972.
Since the house is still contributing,
we know that whatever changes have happened,
they aren't enough to cause the house
to have lost its historic appearance.
But take a look at the very first item.
Right there it says that the front
porch has been enclosed since 1972,
but from the picture you can
tell the porch isn't enclosed.
So, the question is, what happened here?
You should know that, when
it comes to this nomination,
not everything is 100% correct.
There's a couple of reasons for that.
One is that the nomination
form took ten years to write.
It took ten years to research
every single building,
every single garage, every single store,
every single parking lot,
every single vacant lot, every
resource within the district,
all 594 of them.
It took so long for the nomination
form to be researched and written that,
by the time it was finished in 2011,
some things had changed.
In this particular case,
it sounds like the house had
an open porch in 1972,
but by the time it was examined for
inclusion in the nomination form,
the porch had been enclosed.
But by the time the nomination
form was published in 2011,
the porch had been reopened.
That's one possibility.
The other possibility is that
maybe somebody just made a mistake.
One way or the other,
not everything in the nomination form matches
what's on the ground.
Regardless, this document is
available to you through the
Missouri State Park System.
The web address right there will
take you directly to the nomination
for Harry S Truman Historic District
National Historic Landmark.
You can pause this if you
want to copy that down.
Essentially, this is the test: Regardless
of how much the resource may have
changed since its original construction,
does it still look like it did in 1972?
If so, then it is a contributing resource.
If not, it is a noncontributing resource.
1972 is the end of the
period of significance,
so no matter how much a resource may
have changed since it was first built,
it can't have significantly changed since
1972 or it becomes noncontributing.
In 2011,
the district contained 594 resources.
467 of them were contributing and
127 were noncontributing.
So that means that 79% of the
resources in the district still
look like they did in 1972.
There is no official rule as to
how low that number, 79%, can go.
Most people I've talked to, however,
would like it not to drop below 80%.
If it drops too low,
the Park Service would say that the whole
district doesn't look historic anymore.
It would be nice if there were a
few more contributing features.
Still though, for a living neighborhood,
79% isn't too bad.
So, here's what we can do
with all this information.
We can analyze the growth of the district.
First of all, what we do is take
the period of significance, 1890
to 1972, and break it down into
smaller sections that represent
periods of Truman's life.
The first one would be everything
that happened up until 1890, before
he moved to Independence. This would
be the "Pre-Period of Significance."
The next section would be
"Establishing Community Roots."
This goes from 1890, when he's six years old,
up until 1919 when he and Bess
get married and he becomes a
permanent resident of the district.
The third period would be
"Developing Political Skills and
Associations," from 1920 to 1933.
These are the years the Truman
gets involved in local politics.
"Attaining National Prominence,"
1934 to 1953, are the years
that he spent as a US Senator,
vice president, and eventually
President of the United States.
And then his retirement years:
"Serving as Elder Statesman."
This period runs from 1953 when
he came home from the White House
up until his death in 1972.
And we can throw one more period in here.
That would be the "Post-
Period of Significance,"
which goes from his death
in 1972, up until 2011,
when the district was expanded.
The reason I'm cutting it off in
2011 is because that's only as
far as the documentation goes.
What may have changed since
2011 hasn't been documented,
although I can tell you
that, right off the bat,
I can't think of much of anything
that's notably different,
but for the purposes of this program,
we will cut it off in 2011.
Alright, here's how this works.
Stick with me.
This is not a biography of Harry Truman,
so don't expect a linear
chronology of his life.
That's not what this is about.
This is an examination of
the historic neighborhood.
So, what we do is we look at the
appearance of all the district's
resources as they were in 1972,
and then we look at the year at which
each resource took on that appearance.
Then, based on what year the resource
took on its 1972 appearance,
we put the resource in whichever period
of Truman's life would include that year.
So, this way we can chart the
development of the district's
appearance over Truman's life.
Sometimes important things happened
in buildings of different ages.
We're looking at how the district grew.
So, the events will not be in
chronological order of Truman's life,
but instead, the events will be
discussed in the chronological order
in which the resources in which they
happened took on their 1972 appearance.
Now, instead of saying "their
appearance in 1972" all the time,
I'm going to refer to that as the
"final appearance" of the resource.
The "final appearance" means "how
the resource looked in 1972."
Now, I know that some of you
are probably saying,
"Huh?"
So, let's practice a bit.
Let's take a look at the Pre-Period of
Significance, before 1890. We'll use his home,
the Truman home. The house was built by Mrs.
Truman's grandfather, George Porterfield
Gates. Gates moved to Independence in 1867.
He bought this piece of
property that same year.
At the same time,
there was already a small building that
was on it that was built around 1850.
The grandfather added onto that in 1867,
and then made a major addition in 1885.
The house has not significantly
changed since then,
so this means that 1885 is the year that this
house took on its final appearance. In 1972,
at the end of the district's
period of significance,
this house still looked like it did in 1885,
so since 1885 is
earlier than 1890,
this house goes into the category
of Pre-Period of Significance.
That make sense?
Bess was living in her grandfather's
house after her dad
died. When they got married,
Bess moved to Harry's house, but within
a couple of months, Bess's
mom got sick, so Harry and Bess moved
back to the grandfather's house to
take care of her, and then stayed
there for the rest of their lives.
This is the house Harry Truman
lived in before,
during, and after he was president.
Let's look at the Establishing Community
Roots, from 1890 to 1919, period.
This building was built around 1887.
That is earlier than 1890,
so you would think that this building would
be in the Pre-Period of Significance, right?
Well, in 1915 there was a major
fire on the town square.
This building was gutted
by the fire. Its insides
were rebuilt and the facade was modified.
So, this is the way it looked in 1915,
which was still the way it looked in 1972.
So, this means that 1915 is the year
it took on its final appearance.
Therefore it goes in category
2 of Harry Truman's life,
Establishing Community Roots period.
Harry Truman was first elected
to political office in 1922.
It was the office of county judge.
The county judges were more like county
commissioners rather than judicial judges.
It was an administrative office.
He lost the 1924 election,
but was elected again in 1926.
From then on, his career
was nothing but politics.
But during the two years from 1924 to 1926,
he operated a savings and loan
located in the middle storefront
of this building right here.
You can see that there are three
storefronts in this building.
The businesses have changed,
of course, over the years,
but the building's appearance hasn't.
The Developing Political Skills and
Associations category goes from 1920 to 1933.
These are the years between when
Harry Truman got involved in local
politics up until the year before he
decided to run for the US Senate.
This is the high school from which his
daughter, Margaret, graduated in 1942.
It was built in 1918,
which would put it in the
2nd period of Truman's life,
but it got in addition in 1929,
so 1929 is when it took
on its final appearance,
which puts it in category
3 of Harry Truman's life.
This is an easy one.
Now we're talking about the
Attaining National Prominence
period from 1934 to 1953.
This house was built around
1939 and has never changed.
It took on its final appearance in the year
it was built, so it definitely
goes into the 4th category.
Look at the name though.
It's called the Truman home.
There are two Truman homes in the district.
There's Harry Truman's house
and then there's this one.
This is LeRoy Truman's house.
As far as anybody knows,
LeRoy was no relation to Harry.
It just so happens that there
were two families named Truman
who lived in Independence.
This is the Serving as Elder Statesman
period, from 1953 to 1972.
These are Truman's retirement years.
This is the first of those three
discontiguous areas I mentioned.
This church was built in 1881.
That means, if it hadn't changed, it would
have taken on its final appearance in
period 1 of Truman's life, before 1890.
But in 1959 there was a major rear addition
added that was so big
that it noticeably changed
the appearance of the church
from the right-of-way.
So, we would say that 1959 was the year
the church took on his final appearance,
which puts it in category
5 of Truman's life.
This is the church where Harry
and Bess were married in 1919.
When she was young, Bess's family
went to the Presbyterian Church.
Later, however,
Bess and some of her other relatives
joined the Episcopal Church.
Harry had had a crush on Bess
since he was six years old.
He was 35 when they finally got married.
The minister who married them
remembered that Harry was so
excited that he said "I do" three
times and once was when the
minister was just taking a breath.
Lastly, there is the Post-Period
of Significance, from 1972 to 2011.
These are the resources that took on
their final appearance since 1972.
Can you see the building that
the arrow's pointing at?
This photograph was taken in 1950.
Here's how the building looks now.
It became a parking lot in 1973,
so that's the year we would say this
parking lot took on its final appearance.
The building that was here burned that year.
It's really too bad,
because it's the building where Harry
Truman had his headquarters for his
very first political campaign in 1922
when he ran for county judge. It's the only
building associated with his political
career that isn't around anymore.
It was a parking lot in 1973, but by the
time I took this photograph in 2011,
a restaurant next door was already starting
to convert this into an outdoor eating area,
so you can see that you really
couldn't park here by 2011.
Now, here's the thing.
If the fire had happened in 1971,
then the parking lot would be contributing
because it would have taken on its final
appearance during Truman's lifetime.
But it didn't.
So, it's noncontributing
and we leave it at 1973.
Now we can start to look at some maps
and analyze the growth of the district.
The red items on the maps
are the buildings that took on their
final appearance before 1890.
You can see the Truman home is in there
and over on the left is the Truman
Boyhood Home where he lived as a teenager.
This group of resources makes up 8%
of the 594 resources in the district.
So, let's take a look at a couple of them.
The First Presbyterian Church took on its
final appearance in 1888 when it was built.
This is where Harry and Bess first met.
He was six years old and
she was five years old.
The Truman's were Baptists.
The Baptist Church, however,
apparently didn't have a Sunday School,
so Harry's mother sent him to Sunday
School at the Presbyterian Church. Bess's
family was still
Presbyterian at the time.
This was in 1890, right after
Harry's family moved to Independence.
According to him,
he fell in love with her at age
six, and it took him 29 years to
finally get around to marrying her.
But there doesn't seem to be anyone
else that he was ever interested in.
Another building from the Pre-
Period of Significance is the
Slack Grocery Building. It took
on its final appearance around 1885.
There was an organization called
the Rural Jackson County Democratic
Club that would meet upstairs
in this building. In April 1922,
the leader of the rural branch of
the Democratic Party announced
that Harry Truman would be the
party's candidate for county
judge in the election that year.
This was the first time that Harry
Truman's name was mentioned in
connection with a political office.
Of course, no one knew it at the time,
but this was the moment that he
started on the road to the White House.
There were 223 resources that
took on their final appearance
between 1890 and 1919.
That adds up to 38% of the
resources in the district.
One of those was a single
building made up of two sections.
It is the Clinton Block and
the Casper/Shimfessell Block.
You can see that there are three storefronts.
There's one, there's two, and there's three,
although the two on the left over
here have been combined into a single store.
The building was built in 1906 after the
building that sat here first burned down.
It was the earlier building in which
Harry Truman had his first job.
He was 14 years old.
His job was at Clinton's Drugstore,
which, in the earlier building,
was the shop in the middle.
Harry's job was to sweep the floors
and dust the bottles before school.
After the first building burned in 1906,
Clinton rebuilt his drugstore,
but he moved it to the shop on the
corner at the right down here.
Mr. Casper and Mr. Shimfessell, only
a couple of weeks later,
started work on their part of the building,
which is the two shops on the left.
If you look at the roofline,
up here,
you can see where the two blocks meet.
There's a small jog in the roof.
Clinton's is still in the shop on the right,
but it's not a drugstore anymore.
Now it's a soda fountain.
The folks who own Clinton's might
like you to think that it was in their
shop where Harry had his first job.
But, technically, it isn't,
but it doesn't really matter.
Even if this building isn't
the one where he worked,
it took on its final appearance by 1907.
One other building from this period
I'll show you is the second of
the three discontiguous areas.
This is the Missouri
Pacific Railroad Station.
Back in the days of train travel,
anyone coming or going to Independence
passed through this station.
The Trumans caught trains here many times.
The building took on its
final appearance in 1913.
So, this is how the district looked,
cumulatively, in 1919 with both
periods 1 and 2 combined.
1919 is when Truman moved into
it permanently. By 1919,
46% of the district
looked like they would in 1972.
That's almost half.
Harry would have seen the
fires, he would have seen the
newer buildings being built,
he would have seen all these
buildings take on the appearance
they would have had the year he died.
So, in a lot of ways, you could say
he grew up with the town.
During the Developing Political
Skills and Associations period,
another 19% of the buildings
took on their final appearance.
One was the Farmers and
Merchants Bank building,
part of which predates 1885,
but it got a facelift in a
rear addition around 1921.
The addition is in the back.
You can see this part.
You can see there's
another store back there
that has a separate address.
Harry Truman and several of his friends
would play cards in the back upstairs here
every Monday night.
By this point,
Harry Truman was involved in politics,
where a lot of the people he
would associate with were other
politicians or appointed officials
like the postmaster or bankers
or business owners. Essentially,
this group were the movers
and shakers of Independence.
They had all been in World War I together
and they'd all known each other for a long time.
It is always easier to work with people
with whom you have a personal and not
just a professional relationship.
Harry Truman sincerely liked people,
which is a good quality for
a politician to have.
Being close friends with a lot of
influential people is also a good
thing for a politician to have.
These were the people who helped
Harry Truman get ahead in his career.
Another building that took on its
final appearance during this period
is the Jackson County Courthouse.
This is where Harry Truman had his
office when he was county judge.
His office was right here in the corner.
The courthouse went through several
remodelings over the years. In 1933,
however, when Truman was county judge,
he had it remodeled to look like this.
So 1933 is the year it took
on its final appearance.
A house that took on its final appearance
in 1925 was the Southern House,
which was built right across the
street from Harry Truman's house.
He had no idea what role this
house would play in his later life.
In 1953, when he left the White House,
retired presidents still didn't
get pensions or protection. When
they were done being president,
they were simply sent home
and expected to take care of themselves.
This got more and more difficult
during the 1950s,
when most families started owning cars and
the heyday of the family vacation began.
Harry Truman was probably the first president
to feel the serious effects of tourism.
Crowds of sightseers were around his house
all the time. As the Trumans
got older, the crowds started to
get a little frightening.
No one tried to hurt them on purpose,
but Mr. Truman started to have trouble
with vertigo and I think he worried
about getting knocked down by
people who wanted to shake his hand.
The presidential pension and protection
started during Truman's retirement and
he got them once they were available.
The Secret Service came back and
the Trumans appreciated them more
as they got older.
Nothing of note ever happened
though. They would drive the Trumans to
the grocery store and things like that,
and that was about it.
The agents mainly just helped with the crowds.
When the agents were on duty,
however, this house,
45 years after it was built,
served as the Secret Service's base of
operations for the Truman detail in 1970.
In 1925,
when this house was built,
Harry and Bess wouldn't have been able to
imagine what the future held for them.
So, by 1933, the year before
he decided to run for the US Senate,
64% of the resources in the district had
already taken on their final appearance.
During the years he was in national politics,
from 1934 to 1953, there wasn't
much construction happening.
Only 7% of the resources took
on their final appearance.
Part of the reason
for that is probably due
to the Great Depression.
World War II also took
place during this time.
And after the war was over and the
soldiers came home and got married,
a lot of these young families
wanted their own homes,
so a lot of them started
moving to the suburbs.
The Independence town square still
remained the center of business,
but the 1950s were the beginning of the
end of the old part of Independence
being the heart of the town.
One building that did take on its
final appearance during this time
was the Palmer Junior High School.
This building sits on the spot
of the high school that Harry
and Bess graduated from in 1901.
That older building burned down in
1925 and this new school was built.
And by this point
the other high school that Margaret
graduated from that we saw earlier
had been built so that was the high
school and the high school that
Harry and Bess had graduated from
had turned into a junior high,
so when it was rebuilt in 1925,
it just stayed a junior high.
Margaret Truman would have attended
junior high in this building. But only
in this part, at the end.
That's the part that was built
in 1925. In 1940,
this part, up here closer to us, was added.
So, 1940 is the year the building
took on its final appearance.
There are not many resources in the
district that could be called "objects,"
but this is one of them.
This statue of Andrew Jackson
was dedicated by President Harry
Truman at Christmas in 1949.
Jackson County is named after
Andrew Jackson. And Jackson was
Harry Truman's favorite president,
so Truman took advantage of the
chance to commission this statue
and have it placed at the Jackson
County Courthouse in the center
of the Independence town square.
By the time Truman
retired from the White House
in 1953 and came home for good,
71% of the district had taken
on its final appearance.
During his retirement years,
the Serving as Elder Statesman
period, 44 more resources would
take on their final appearance.
Again, lots of people were
moving to the suburbs,
but there was still a lot of development
up at the north end of the district.
You can see up here.
One of these homes, though,
wasn't in that main district.
This is the last of the
three discontiguous sites.
This is the Vietta Garr house.
Vietta Garr was Harry and Bess's part
time housekeeper and cook.
She didn't live with them.
She had her own home, but she worked
for them for about 40 years.
When they got back from the White House,
the Trumans helped Ms. Garr
finance the building of a
brand new home and this is it.
Vietta retired from the Trumans
around 1969 and died in 1973,
almost exactly one year
after Harry Truman died.
Around 1966, this ranch style house
was built by a family named Pettigrew.
Mr. Truman was on one of
his walks that summer.
Mr. Pettigrew was out watering the
new sod he'd laid down in his yard,
and Mr Truman introduced
himself and said, "Mr. Pettigrew,
glad to have you for a neighbor." And
afterwards, Mr. Truman went on about
his business and I don't know if Mr.
Truman ever thought about
that moment again or not.
But the Pettigrews never forgot it.
See, the Pettigrews were a Black family.
It's 1966.
There's a Black family moving onto
Delaware Street, which is the same street
the Trumans live on.
They were already living close to
this address before they moved here,
but sometimes a block or two
can make a big difference.
Delaware Street had always been
considered one of the upper class
streets in Old Town Independence,
so the Pettigrews might have wondered
how well their neighbors would take to them.
But then here comes
a former president walking up,
introducing himself, and not
just welcoming them into his
neighborhood, but onto his own street.
That was a big deal to the Pettigrews.
They have a relative named Alversia
Pettigrew who still lives in Independence
and she still talks about that.
As we said, by 1972,
when Harry Truman died,
79% of the resources had taken
on their final appearance.
Independence did change a lot
over the course of his life,
and he would have seen
all those changes happen.
But let's take a look at the
Post-Period of Significance.
It was during this time that
21% of the resources took
on their final appearance.
Remember that there's basically
two things that can make a
resource noncontributing.
One is if it was constructed
after the period of significance.
An example is the Baptist Church's
new sanctuary. The old Baptist Church,
which you can see a little of on the
left side of the picture, dates back to
the latter part of the 19th century.
The congregation, however, had outgrown
the old church and needed more space.
So, in 1986, the church built its new
sanctuary right next to the old church.
It's a nice church.
But it postdates 1972.
So it postdates the period of significance,
which makes it noncontributing.
The other thing that can make a resource
noncontributing is major alterations.
This house was built around 1905.
The house has newer siding,
some windows have been replaced,
there's a new balustrade right here.
The banisters I think, are probably also
replaced. Those things by themselves
would not be enough to cause this
house to become noncontributing.
I'll tell you what did it.
It's this new one-story addition right here.
So, the cumulative effect of all
the alterations detracts from what
we would say are the important
character-defining features of
the building and the streetscape,
resulting in a loss of historic integrity.
Now, it doesn't mean that these
people are bad or anything like that.
In fact, the people who live there
now may not even be the people who
made the addition, and remember,
Landmark owners can do whatever
they want with their property.
As far as the local Heritage Commission goes,
this house is part of the expanded district,
which isn't included in the
City's Heritage District.
It may be that the local Heritage Commission
didn't even review these changes.
One way or the other,
unfortunately, it
is noncontributing. If all the
resources that are noncontributing
because of alterations had not been
altered and remained contributing,
instead of having only 79% of
its resources contributing,
the historic district would have
86% of its resources contributing,
which would be great.
But that's not the way it is.
Now that all the resources have been
assigned to a period of Truman's life,
we can finally create a three-
dimensional map of the resource.
I took each period of Truman's
life and assigned it an elevation
instead of a time period.
The highest elevation would be
the resources that took on their
final appearance the earliest.
So the Pre-Period of Significance resources
are the highest and the Post-Period
of Significance resources are the lowest.
Since there is space between the
resources, like one house is here
in the next house is over here,
there's space in between them.
So, I had the computer
interpolate that empty space
and estimate which periods that
empty space would fall into.
So, now we're able to have a physical
model representing how the district grew
over the course of Harry Truman's life.
This is what the district would
look like if it was a landscape.
The white areas represent the
Pre-Period of Significance.
The brown areas represent the period
of Establishing Community Roots.
The tan areas represent the period of
Developing Political Skills and Associations.
The Attaining National Prominence
period contains so few resources
that it doesn't even show up.
The green areas represent Mr.
Truman's retirement years,
Serving as Elder Statesman.
The blue areas are the lowest areas
and represent the resources from
the Post-Period of Significance.
So, we can see there's kind of a
white ridge that runs along here.
It's not continuous,
but over here it looks like, maybe,
it might have continued like that.
That would be the older buildings.
The older part of town,
new resources like this one
right here can create kind of a
crater shape in the landscape.
There's a plateau
over here
that mainly dates from the
Establishing Community Roots period.
The older commercial part of
town is over here.
But it's not the newest because everything
kept burning down all the time.
So the area of the
district is older,
but the buildings aren't as old.
Here's the landscape
with the resources overlaid.
Truman's house is in red so you can see
it's in the white, older, part of town.
Now here's the deal. Up
here we have a problem.
This is the Truman library. All right.
This is a city park and this is a city park.
Those are three different
resources in the district.
That area was developed during Truman's
retirement years, so it should all be green,
the Serving as Elder Statesman period.
What is blue thing is, I don't know.
I don't know.
The whole area should be green.
I have a couple of guesses.
It might be that
the distance between the Truman Library
and this area in here
might have been so far that the computer
wasn't able to interpolate it the way
it should have. The other possibility
is that this area here, this constricted area,
might be that that's so tight that
maybe that threw off the interpolation.
I don't know.
Anyway, this whole area is an anomaly.
Just don't look at that part.
Pretend that part's not there.
Just look at the rest of it and
you can get an idea as to how
the town expanded over time.
Let's take a look at one last resource.
It's a site and it's the largest
resource in the district.
It's the cultural landscape.
The street system within the
historic district retains its
historic grid configuration.
It's part of a cultural landscape that
includes a variety of features,
including the streets, the sidewalks,
curbs, gutters, curb cuts, retaining walls,
traffic signs,
light standards,
and power lines and street trees.
Everybody always seems to focus
on the buildings and not pay
attention to the landscape.
We look at all these things like this,
these transformers, and
we don't even see them.
These transformers would usually
be thought of as ugly. Eventually,
however, it's likely that everything,
even electricity,
possibly, will be transmitted through the air.
So, 100 years from now,
people will come take a tour
of Harry Truman's house,
look across the street and see this, and
think, "Oh, how quaint they were back then.
They were still using wires."
Preserving our own history is
difficult because it's really
easy to take it for granted.
There are three free passes
for resources in the district.
These are three resources that were
either constructed or underwent major
alterations after Mr. Truman died
in 1972, but are still considered
contributing due to their obvious
connection to the president.
The first one is a building.
This is Harry S. Truman
Presidential Museum and Library.
It was originally completed in 1957 and
undergoes renovations about every 20 years.
There was one in 1967 and another in 1979.
It underwent another
major renovation in 2001.
It currently, as I'm recording this,
is undergoing another renovation, and
this is going to be a big one because
it's going to move the front of the
building that we're looking at over
to the right side of the building.
The building is facing south now,
but the entrance is going to
be moved to the east side,
so this is going to be a really big change,
but it doesn't matter;
no matter what changes are made
to the building from here on out,
it's always going to be
considered contributing.
So, that's a building.
The second one is a site.
The courtyard inside the building is a
separate resource from the building itself.
This is where Mr. and Mrs.
Truman are buried.
The gravesites have undergone
changes in landscaping a few times.
I don't know how much change
might happen after the current
renovation is completed,
but it doesn't matter.
The gravesites will always be considered
to be a contributing resource.
The last of the free passes
goes to the Harry S Truman statue.
It seems to have a fairly obvious
connection to Harry Truman.
The statue stands on the grounds of the
county courthouse on the town square.
President Gerald Ford dedicated the statue
on Harry Truman's birthday, May 8, in 1976.
Mrs. Truman was not well enough to
come to the ceremony, but Margaret
was able to be there.
And so was I, as a matter of fact.
I was in the high school band
that played for the ceremony.
All along, we've talked
about national significance.
Now where we're at the end,
we have to ask, "What is the national
significance of Harry S Truman Historic
District National Historic Landmark?"
What is it about this area that makes it
important enough to be a National Park?
This is what the nomination form says:
"The Harry S Truman Historic District is
nationally significant by virtue of its
association with the life of Harry S Truman,
the 33rd President of the United States,
for the period of significance 1890 to 1972.
Truman's association with the people
who lived and worked in and around
the buildings and cultural landscape
features in this historic district
prepared him for the presidency,
revitalized him during his presidency,
and supported his post-
presidential political and governmental
activities over an 82-year period.
This historic district best
represents the life, leadership,
influence, and national significance
of Harry S Truman."
So what?
So what if he had a lifelong
relationship with Independence?
Was he the only person that had one?
It looks like he wasn't.
If he had a relationship with this
community, that suggests there must
have been other members of that
community that also had a lifelong
relationship with their hometown.
So, what makes him special?
It's so obvious that sometimes people
don't get it. If you don't already know,
he was the president of the United States.
That's what makes him special.
Presidents are automatically
nationally significant.
Harry Truman was associated with
Independence for 82 of his 88 years.
That's him and his little
brother over there on the left.
His deep roots may have helped him
resist the temptations and potential
abuse of fame and power that the
presidency might cause. He remarked,
"I tried never to forget who I
was and where I'd come from and
where I was going back to."
This is Independence in 1899
when Harry was 15 years old.
This is the year after he started
working at Clinton's drugstore.
So, in his letter that he wrote early on,
he was right that the town changed
over the course of his life.
But the historic district has not
changed significantly since he died.
Visitors today can still walk
the same streets and see the same
sites that produced a president
of the United States who seemed
to be able to execute the powers
of his office effectively
and yet still think of himself
as a regular person.
It is impossible to understand Harry Truman
without understanding Harry S Truman Historic
District National Historic Landmark.
It's not a National Park, but it could
be because it's nationally significant.
If the Truman home was hit by a tornado,
the historic district would still be significant
and could still be a National Park.
The National Historical Landmark's
significance is derived from the
person Harry Truman and not his house.
I'm going to let Harry Truman have the final
word. This was recorded in the early 1960s.
[Harry Truman speaking]
"Well, it's good to be back home
in what I call the center of the world:
Independence, Missouri. I think it's the greatest
town the United States, and I've been all over
the country and have been to Europe and
South America and several other places.
But I still like to come back home and
I'll continue to feel that
way as long as I live.
And I think you'll find everybody
in Independence feels the same
way about this town because
it's the center of things for most of
us, and it's the center of things for me.
And I'm more than happy to be here and to
stay here for the rest of my life.
I hope I won't cause you too much
trouble while I'm here."
[Narrator speaking] So, if you want to learn about America,
visit your National Parks.
But also visit your National
Historic Landmarks
and your National Natural Landmarks.
You could do a lot worse when
it comes to sightseeing.
The National Historic and Natural
Landmarks Systems together would make
up a National Park System of 3,200 units.
It's huge.
So, there must be some close to home.
If you want to know more about all this stuff,
check our website. The address is
nps - National Park Service - nps.gov.
Here you can link to any National Park
you want as well as learn all you need
to know about the Landmark Programs.
Most of the photographs I took myself,
but for those I didn't, here are the credits.
And, other than that, that's the end.
I hope you found this interesting
and enjoyed it, and maybe
we'll do this again sometime.
So long until then.