Former President Harry Truman remembered today; it’s a Missouri and county holiday

Most of Jefferson City’s approximately 14,000 state employees are off today, to celebrate former President Harry Truman’s birthday. It is a state and county holiday, and Jefferson City offices will be closed as well today. Columbia city offices are open today, according to city spokeswoman Sydney Olsen. The Boone and Cole County Courthouses are closed today, due to the holiday.

Harry Truman was born 139 years ago today in southwest Missouri’s Lamar, in 1884. The nation’s 33^rd president was vice president in 1945 when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died.

President Truman implemented the Marshall Plan to help rebuild western Europe’s economy after World War II, and he also began the Truman Doctrine.  President Truman served as our nation’s 33^rd president, from 1945 to 1953. He fought for health care while in office, and then-President Lyndon Johnson signed the Medicare bill at the Truman Presidential Library in Independence in 1965.

Truman’s birthday is one of Missouri’s 13 official state holidays.