A President, a Church, and Trails West

Over time, imprinting a city's collective memory on the cultural landscape through museums, monuments, and historic preservation involves a wide range of interest groups and local, state, and federal officials. Independence, Missouri, was a main depot for three western trails, became home to the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, and was the hometown of President Harry S. Truman. This straightforward study examines how supporters of these various histories have tried to imprint their story on the city's cultural landscape. Its main focus, however, is on the development of the Harry S. Truman National Historical Site and the challenges supporters of the Truman legacy have faced in convincing town residents that the Truman story is the most important one in town. Though Truman helped preserve the town's trail history and maintained cordial relations with the Mormon Church, his support for efforts to build the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library in Independence in 1957 tipped the balance among competing histories toward the Truman story. In 1971 the Truman Home and the surrounding neighborhood formed by seventy-eight structures—those that Truman passed every day on his famous walks—were designated as the Truman National Historical Site. In the ensuing years, the city declared the area a historic district, a local Heritage Commission was formed to promote historic preservation in the district, and the National Park Service began to administer the area. As increasingly ambitious historic preservation ideas that sought to preserve not just individual structures but also districts, neighborhoods, and cultural landscapes penetrated the planning process, confrontations with surrounding property owners increased

Archaeology · Commission · Historic site · Independence (probability theory · National park · Political science · Politics · Presidential system · Royal Commission · Sociology · State (computer science · History · Latin American and Latino Studies · Law · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies