Truman's Hometown — Independence & the Frontier Trails

Just east of Kansas City, the old town of Independence carries two distinct layers of American history that this day threads together. It was the launching point for the Santa Fe, Oregon, and California trails — the jumping-off place where tens of thousands of nineteenth-century emigrants outfitted their wagons and rolled west from the courthouse square. A century later it was home to Harry S. Truman, the plain-spoken Missouri farmer and haberdasher who became the thirty-third president, and who lived out his life in the white Victorian house on North Delaware Street. The day moves from the excellent presidential library and museum through Truman's own neighborhood and the trails museum, anchored by lunch on the historic Independence Square where the emigrant journey once began.