1. Harry S Truman National Historic Site National Park Service
U.S. Department of the Interior
Changing Landscape
Blue
Ridge
Blvd
The Truman farm was big. Six hundred acres. Over
454 football fields worth of land. Almost eight times
the size of the average Missouri farm in 1906. Where
did all the land go?
The family decided to sell the old farm. Piece by
piece, the property was turned into shopping centers
and housing developments. At the dedication of
the Truman Corners Shopping Center in 1957, Mr.
Truman confessed that selling the farm “gives the
family rather a case of homesickness.”
“While we would liked very much to have kept
the farm as home and have used it and run it as
a farm, we know very well that progress pays no
attention to individuals,” remarked Truman after
leaving the White House.
By 1994, the National Park Service acquired the
remaining part of the farm. Today, only ten acres
of the once sprawling property survives, but the
old house still stands and helps to preserve an
important chapter in the life of Harry S Truman.
It used to be so quiet...you could plow the
north eighty without taking the plow out of
the ground. It’s all changed so much.
Mary Jane Truman
US71
You Are Here
Original Farm Boundary
Harry Truman operating a two-row
cultivator. Long days in the field
gave him time to think. “I’ve settled
all the ills of mankind in one way or
another while riding along seeing
that each animal pulled his part of
the load.” Image courtesy of the
Harry S. Truman Library.