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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 US 71 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.
