DAY 42 – August 9, 2012 – Independence, Missouri – LDS History and Truman

Independence turned out to be a different visit than I expected.  I thought we would have a short visit at the LDS Visitors Center, drive by a couple sites and leave for other parts of Missouri.  This is probably what we would have done if we were in a hurry.  But having a little time, we decided we would do a more thorough visit.  Independence is much larger than I expected, and yet it’s still very small for all it contains.

There are three things I love, LDS Church History, US History, and old architecture and design.  Independence has all three of these things, and one day is not enough time to do them all.

We started at the LDS Visitors Center.  The Center is open until 9pm, so you might not want it to be your first stop.  We found that 5pm came to fast today, and other places we wanted to visit were closed.  If I did it again, I might have ended my day here.  It is a great visit, and there is enough to do to be here for 1-2 hours.  We visited for 2 hours.

The Visitor’s section is split into a couple of sections.  The section called “Gods Plan for the Family” was very moving.  Then we went across to Scripture and Revelation section.  We were there a long time, our kid liked going through all the kiosks and watching all the videos.  They have a Christus here, so we stopped there for a while.  Then we went downstairs to the area where they cover the history of the Saints in Missouri.  They did a great job, and it was a great setup to help our younger kids visualize everything.  At the end they have a section where the kids can play with a pioneer wagon and log cabin.

Mr. S asked if they had a room that we could use privately.  Our family sat in the room together and went over all we had seen at all the church sites (Winter Quarters, Palmyra, Nauvoo, Kirtland, Mendon, Pennsylvania etc).  Since we visited them out of historical order, we reviewed where and when everything happened.  It was great to be able to talk about church history with our kids having a point of reference now, to know what we were talking about.  It was a great family moment, and I’m glad Mr. S took that opportunity.

Independence, Missouri, is the home to Harry S. Truman, our 33^rd President of the United States.  Many significant things happened during Truman’s Presidency, including… dropping the Atomic bomb, his Marshall Plan, the beginning of the Cold War, his Fair Deal, officially recognizing Israel, the McCarthy years, and the Korean War are a handful.  Can you believe all of that happened under one president!  He also had an assassination attempt that we had learned about while we did our Lincoln walking tour in Washington DC.  The older boys didn’t think we could possibly miss this.  So we visited the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library for a couple of hours.  if you like US History, it’s a must see.

One of the boys favorites quotes from Harry Truman,

“Readers of good books, particularly books of biography and history, are preparing themselves for leadership.  Not all readers become leaders, but all leaders must be readers.”

When we were done with the library it was after 5pm, and we realized a handful of the other places we had

Where Harry Truman had his first job.

wanted to visit were now closed.  So we decided to do the Missouri Mormon Walking Trail.  We picked up a brochure at the LDS Visitors Center (although there are also other places you can probably get this).  This tour is put together by The Missouri Mormon Frontier Foundation which is a not-for-profit non-sectarian group dedicated to the promotion and understanding of local history.  It’s a free self-guided walking tour about 1 mile long.  It was good.  (We did drive some parts of it, and there was plenty of parking, even for our motor home to do this.)

*** After we finished, I found a more detailed map in our book, “LDS Family Travel Guide Independence to Nauvoo”.  This map (in the book on pg. 51) is provided by the Independence Tourism Department.  And instead of 14 stops, it lists 21 stops, not just Mormon Historical, but US Historical sites.  That would have been better to use, because we were walking past US historical markers as we were doing the Church walking tour. 

Some of the highlights of the 21 stop tour which includes LDS and US History stops…
1) Clinton’s Soda Fountain where Harry Truman worked for his first job,
2) Jackson County Courthouse where Sidney Rigdon preached, and Bishop Partridge and Charles Allen were tarred and feathered, there are also monuments to the Oregon Trail and the Santa Fe Trail there
3) Gilbert & Whitney Store; where brother Gilbert sold goods,  a meeting was held here where the Mormon leaders were told that they should leave the county, and on this spot a mob of 500 men gathered to destroy if Brother Gilbert did not close the store and leave.
4) Harry Truman Home
5) Bingham-Waggoner Estate
6) Vaile Mansion

The walking tour brought us down near the Bingham-Waggoner Estate.  It hadn’t been on our list of stops, and it was closed for the evening.  The home was so beautiful.  We were able to walk around, and I peaked in the windows.  It was filled with old rich wood, and the era of design the that I love!  I told Mr. S that we can’t possibly leave unless we stop there first.  So tomorrow morning I don’t know if anyone else will come with me, but I will be visiting the Bingham-Waggoner Estate and the Vaile Mansion.

The Bingham-Waggoner Estate is a 22 room mansion that has been extensively restored to the earlier period (about a 1 hour tour).  The Vaile Mansion was once known as the princeliest home in the west.  It’s a 30 room mansion built in 1880 (and it’s a 1 hour tour also).  The mansion has been seen on America’s Castles in the 1999 National Geographic Guide to America’s Great Houses.  I just won’t be able to pass these up.   I had been telling Mr. S I had really wanted to see some southern plantation homes, but it just never worked out.  This will work out great, and I am very much looking forward to tomorrow.

It was a great day, but I do wish we had been able to fit a couple more things in.  It’s very apparent that we have all hit a wall.  We are all a little tired, so it seemed hard to get through the day.  I’m grateful it took until day 42 to hit this point.  What a blessing that we were able to keep such a fast and happy pace for so long.  If we had dragged this slow the rest of the trip, we would not have gotten much done.  It’s a good thing we are a couple of days from home.  But it is funny… everyone keeps trying to add things on the list to keep the trip going.  We all must have mixed feelings of wanting it and yet not wanting it to end.

Original log court house built in 1827, later used as a home by Brother Sydney Gilbert. The plaque out front said it was used for events by Harry Truman when we lived in town.

Summary of Day 42
Drove: 312 miles (100475-100787)

Places we visited or saw:  LDS Visitor’s Center, Harry Truman Presidential Library, Missouri Mormon Walking Tour (things we saw on the tour: Clinton’s Soda Fountain, Jackson County Courthouse, 1827 Log Courthouse, Bingham-Waggoner Estate, Church of Christ Temple Lot, Community of Christ Temple, Gilbert and Whitney Store, Printing Office Site (Evening and Morning Star), Governor Boggs Home Site, and Partridge Home Site and School) , Campus RV Park (next door to the LDS Visitors Center)

*When it has the word “site” next to it, it means there was nothing there but maybe a plaque.  Everything else was still standing.