Word: truman
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...Harry S. Truman Library (library and museum, that is) occupies a single large and dignified U-shaped building on a beautifully landscaped tract of 14 acres in Independence, Missouri--Truman's hometown. Independence was a boom town in the first half of the 19th century, one of the major outfitting centers for wagon trains heading west. By the turn of the century, it had become an agricultural and livestock center. Today, although Independence is steadily being pulled into the vortex of metropolitan Kansas City, its center remains a prosperous, pleasant county seat...
...Truman Library, a few miles to the north of Interstate 70, is on Route 24, one of those now typical four-lane highways which take dreary second place to limited-access throughways. New motels, advertising their accessibility to the library, cluster near interstate exists--Hilton, Sheraton, Ramada, Howard Johnson, Travel Lodge, and Holiday Inn. As one leaves the throughway and approaches The Truman Library, Route 24 is lined with used car lots, supermarkets, gas stations, fast food stores, retail outlets, and light industry. The library and the pleasant municipal park across the highway make a striking contrast...
Because presidential library/museums are almost always referred to just as "libraries," many visitors are confused. At the Truman Library, for instance, although one building houses both facilities, visitors must be enterprising even to find the library, which is not open to the public in any case. Still, they do look--but usually just to see "those people" who work with books and papers. "The tourists don't want to do research," was the comment of a former member of the museum staff, "they just really want to see other people doing...
...only as a member of the Harvard Square Development Task Force that I was given permission to see the archival and research sections of the Harry S. Truman Library. There I saw attractive well-equipped offices for the staff. (The private office of ex-President Truman is sealed while his estate is being probated.) The reading room for visiting scholars is large and comfortable. A big, specially-equipped area on two floors is filled with stacks for the library's estimated eight million papers...
Providing for cars and other motor vehicles is obviously an important consideration at each of the presidential facilities I visited. The original provisions have just as obviously proved inadequate. Today, there are three public parking lots at the Truman Library--two of them added since the library opened. There are three lots for the Hoover Historic Site. The two at the Eisenhower Center are clearly over-taxed; a third lot for 300 cars is currently under construction. Each of the three library/museums has a special area designated for what the sign at the Truman Library calls "Buses, Trucks, Campers, Trailers...