Thursday is Harry Truman Day in Missouri, a state and county holiday.
President Harry Truman served as America’s 33rd president and was born 141 years ago in southwest Missouri’s Lamar. Today is one of Missouri’s 13 official state holidays. Most of Jefferson City’s approximately 14,000 state employees have the day off, except for emergency personnel like Missouri state troopers.
President Truman was vice president in 1945 when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died. President Truman was in the White House from 1945 to 1953. His whistle stop train campaign stopped in Jefferson City in 1948. Truman implemented the Marshall plan, started the Truman Doctrine and issued the executive order integrating the U.S. military.
Truman had many ties to mid-Missouri. He joined Prime Minister Winston Churchill when Churchill delivered the famous “Iron Curtain” speech in Fulton in 1946. President Truman and Churchill also spent time that day in Jefferson City.
Columbia Public Schools (CPS) spokeswoman Michelle Baumstark tells 939 the Eagle that Mr. Truman visited Columbia on several occasions, in 1950, 1954 and in 1957. Michelle Baumstark says CPS is one of two districts in Missouri that send all ninth graders to the White House Decision Center at the Truman Library in Independence.
While Jefferson City offices are closed today for the Truman Day holiday, city offices in Columbia are open.
