Sunday, September 6, 2009

A Tourist In My Own City

And now for the history lesson (as promised in my previous post). While Claire and I enjoyed the carnival, I also snuck in a small history lesson. Independence, Missouri is home to President Harry S. Truman, and while the town has sadly declined, the history remains. We saw a statue of Andrew Jackson that President Truman gave to the city ...





... and we learned the Oregon Trail started in Independence ...



... and we did a quick drive-by of the presidential museum, which I visited about a decade ago ...



The coolest part of the museum is that there's an exact replica of the Oval Office inside, which obviously still provides a sense of where our current president goes to work each day. We then drove past the Truman residence. It was termed the "summer White House", because Truman would spend his summers as president in the home, and it is also where he lived before becoming president ...



... the home is actually quite large, which the photo here does not show very well. As expected, most of the history lesson meant nothing to a not-quite-5-year-old, but I enjoyed the sights and felt some excitement about the prospect of having older children some day who can share my appreciation of history.

1 comment:

Steve said...

There's tons of other things to see in your area especially as the kids get older. St. Jo for the Jesse James history, Fulton for the Churchill library and Christopher Wren church. Farther south Fort Smith and the cool buildings from the old West (actually it's quite a long way). Not quite as far south there's Fort Scott and check out the little people in the US Cavalry - seriously take a look at the size of the bunks ! Not quite John Wayne in the movies and how much people have grown in a hundred years or so.
You've got the parks from the Confederate Civil War cemetery near Higginsville. Might have been the losing side but it's a worth a visit for the historical aspect. Parkville is kinda cool (nice brewery but probably not appropriate for the kids) and lots of walks and parks in that area. Further East is all the Mark Twain interesting things to see in Hannibal when they get older - read the books first so it makes more sense. Hermann is a fun visit too, full of little German places and festivals going on at the weekends and you've got lots of parks within a hour or two as the kids get older. It's a nice place to live. And if things get too bad there's alway the "ball of string" although it's a long drive to see nothing ! :-)

Anyway my point is there's quite a lot of historical places only an hour or two away, just dig out the map and see what's there, almost in all directions.

I was also impressed with the start of the Oregon trail, a few ruts in the ground and a covered wagon... although the story in the museum about the pioneers who became cannibal was a bit much, also very sad as they starved after taking the wrong turn in winter.