Built on a hill overlooking the Kansas City skyline on land donated by the City of Independence, the Truman Library was dedicated July 6, 1957, in a ceremony which included the Masonic Rites of Dedication and attendance by former President Herbert Hoover, Chief Justice Earl Warren, and former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Here, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Medicare Act in 1965. And on December 11, 2006, Kofi Annan gave his final speech as Secretary-General of the United Nations at the library, where he encouraged the United States to return to the multilateralist policies of Truman.
The lead architect of the library was Edward F. Neild of Shreveport, Louisiana. Truman had picked Neild in the 1930s to design the renovation of the Independence and construction of the Kansas City Jackson County Courthouses after Neild's work on the courthouse in his native Caddo Parish favorably impressed Truman. Neild was among the architects of the Truman White House reconstruction. Neild died July 6, 1955, at the Kansas City Club while working on the design.
Truman had initially wanted the building to resemble his grandfather Solomon Young's house in Grandview, Missouri. In response to a New York Times review that recalled Frank Lloyd Wright influences in the library's horizontal design, Truman was reported to have said, "It's got too much of that fellow in it to suit me."
Truman actively participated in the day-to-day operation of the Library, personally training museum docents and conducting impromptu "press conferences" for visiting school students. He frequently arrived before the staff and would often answer the phone to give directions and answer questions, telling surprised callers that he was the "man himself." His visitors included incumbent Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, former President Hoover, Jack Benny, Ginger Rogers, Robert F. Kennedy, Thomas Hart Benton, and Dean Acheson.
Architects Gould Evans designed a $23 million renovation of the entire facility unveiled in 2001. The changes included the extensive use of glass in the relatively windowless structure and significantly altering the space between Truman's grave and the museum.
The Truman Home (earlier known as the Gates–Wallace home) was the home of Harry from the time of his marriage to Bess Wallace on June 28, 1919, until his death on December 26, 1972. Bess Truman's maternal grandfather, George Porterfield Gates, built the house over a period of years from 1867 to 1885.
The second floor of the home has never been open to the public because Bess wrote into her will that to protect her family's privacy, the second floor was to remain closed until the death of her daughter, Margaret. Though Margaret died in 2008, the NPS has maintained the closure in order to best preserve the home. A photo tour of the closed rooms, including Harry and Bess's bedroom, is available.
On display in the ground floor of the home is the Steinway piano Truman originally purchased as a Christmas present for Margaret, and which was played by Truman in the White House; a portion of the Trumans' extensive personal library (including the mysteries preferred by Bess); the family record collection; the official White House portrait of the First Lady (the one in Washington D.C. is a copy): and paintings including a panorama of Athens, Greece, a "primitive" of Key West featuring palm trees and a backward-looking donkey, and a canvas entitled "Swan River." The fireplace is framed with tiles depicting a fanciful Middle Eastern desert landscape with tents and minarets, likely inspired by One Thousand and One Nights.
The house on the Grandview Farm was built in 1894 by Harry Truman's maternal grandmother, and is the centerpiece of a 5.25 acres remnant of the family's former 600-acre farm. Truman worked the farm as a young man, from 1906–1917. It was here, said his mother, that Harry got his "common sense." There is no visitor center on the site, but the grounds are open year-round for self-guided tours, and an audio tour is available.
