It's Free to Visit the Truman Home? Really?

July 11, 2019 Posted by: DJ Richardson

Many of our visitors are surprised when they learn that tickets are free to experience the Truman Home. That's a relatively recent thing.

On April 1, 2019, Harry S Truman National Historic Site went fee free, after charging an entrance fee for over 25 years. Why? There were a few reasons the park decided to eliminate the fee:

*In 2017, the park was instructed to raise its fee from $5.00/ person to $7. In 2019, we were told to raise it to $10.00. That would have made the Truman Home the most expensive heritage attraction in Independence, and one of the highest in the Kansas City area. We don''t believe President and Mrs. Truman would have liked that.

*Until the summer of 2017, the park was able to retain all of its fee dollars from daily ticket sales and all Federal passes, including the "America the Beautiful" passes, including the Annual and Senior passes. As a result of changes to Federal law by Congress, we no longer retained the funds from the Senior Passes, greatly lessening the amount dedicated to resource maintenance and preservation and interpretation.

*With these changes to the law, the park was thus collecting roughly $23,000 a year in ticket sales. It was costing the park more than double that to collect it, when you include staffing to collect and manage the fees. In other words, it was costing us over $2 to collect every $1 in fees. It just wasn't cost effective.

Harry S Truman National Historic Site was one of many smaller parks who exited the fee program over the last few years. We are grateful that there still remain some special pots of money that we are elegible to draw from for resource management, preservation and interpretation.

So, after advice from our regional office in Omaha, Nebraska, both Omaha and Washington D.C. felt we would be best going fee free.

So, yes, it is free to go through the Truman Home. Come and join us!

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