Harry S. Truman

Harry S. Truman visited Greenville on October 2, 1934, during his campaign for the U.S. Senate, speaking that day along U.S. Route 67 at the county courthouses in Fredericktown, Greenville, and Popular Bluff. He won the hard-fought Democratic primary and the general election in 1934, became an ally of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and supported F.D.R.'s New Deal program and projects including Wappapello Dam. Before leaving for another speech in Popular Bluff, Truman posed with his campaign staff outside Polk's Service Station along U.S. Route 67 while drinking a cold soda, and during construction of the Route 67 Expressway archaeologists later recovered Coca-Cola and Orange Crush bottles from the roadside ditch there identical to those he was holding. As war approached in 1940, Truman narrowly won reelection to the Senate, and while supporting the war effort he also led a special Senate committee investigating wasteful defense spending, a role that brought him prominence. Roosevelt chose Truman as his running mate in 1944, but after serving only 82 days as vice president, Truman was summoned to the White House on April 12, 1945, where Eleanor Roosevelt told him that the president was dead, and within hours he took the oath of office as the thirty-third President of the United States. Truman had begun his political career in 1922 when he was elected judge, or county commissioner, in Jackson County, Missouri; he won election to the U.S. Senate twice, became vice president in 1944, and after succeeding Roosevelt was elected president in 1948 by narrowly defeating Thomas Dewey.

Missouri · United States