Brochure

Eisenhower National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior PHOTOS AT LEFT—EISENHOWER LIBRARY; RIGHT— WHITE HOUSE HISTORICAL ASSOC. / THOMAS STEVENS Eisenhower National Historic Site Pennsylvania From Small Town Boy to Five Star General to President Dwight David Eisenhower was born in Texas and grew up in Kansas. Ike (a nickname from grade school) had no designs on an army career, much less the presidency of the United States. But he wanted to go to college and discovered that free education awaited young men appointed to the US Military Academy. At West Point Eisenhower pursued football, his first love, until a knee injury barred him from the gridiron for good. In 1952 Eisenhower won election as 34th president of the United States. During his campaign he promised that, if elected, he would bring an end to the Korean War, a bitter conflict pitting United States and United Nations troops against North Korean and Communist Chinese forces. After his election Eisenhower visited Korea; negotiations resulted in an armistice on July 27, 1953. Highlights of Eisenhower’s Life 1890 1890 Born October 14 in Denison, TX, to David and Ida Eisenhower, third of six sons. 1891–1909 Moves with family to and grows up in Abilene, KS; graduates from Abilene High School. 1911 Enters US Military Academy, West Point, NY. 1915–1916 Graduates from West Point, reports to Fort Sam Houston, TX; meets Denver socialite Mamie Geneva Doud in Texas; they marry in 1916. 1917 United States enters World War I (WWI); son Doud Dwight (nicknamed “Icky”) born September 24. 1918 Appointed command- er at Camp Colt, Army Tank Corps training center, Gettysburg, PA. 1919–1921 Sent to Camp Meade, MD; son Icky dies of scarlet fever January 2, 1921. 1922 Joins 20th Infantry Brigade at Camp Gaillard, Panama; receives Distinguished Service Medal for work at Camp Colt; son John Sheldon Doud born Aug. 3. 1925 Graduates first in class from Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, KS. 1926–1927 Works on the American Battle Monuments Commission under General Pershing; is contributing writer for American Armies and Battlefields in Europe, a guide to US involvement in WWI; enters Army War College, Washington, DC. 1928 Travels to Paris, France, as member of Battle Monuments Commission; gains greater familiarity with WWI battlefields. 1929 Assigned to Office of Assistant Secretary of War; prepares plans for mobilizing American industry and military in case of war. Dwight and Mamie married on July 1, 1916, in a simple ceremony at the Doud home in Denver. EISENHOWER PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY 1933–1939 Becomes General MacArthur’s personal assistant; travels to Philippines with MacArthur. Moaney joins Eisenhower’s personal staff, beginning a life of friendship and service that lasts for 27 years; Eisenhower commands the Allied invasion of North Africa. 1939–1940 Germany invades Poland; World War II (WWII) begins in Europe; Eisenhower becomes Chief of Staff, Third Army. 1943 Commands invasion of Italy; appointed Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Forces to command invasion of Europe. 1941 Japanese attack Pearl 1944–1945 Directs inva- Harbor; US enters WWII; Eisenhower called to Washington, DC, to work in War Department. 1942 Named Asst. Chief of Staff in charge of War Plans; named Asst. Chief of Staff of new Operations Division; appointed Commander of European Theatre of Operations; African American John sion of Normandy June 6, D-day; accepts Germany’s unconditional surrender; appointed commander of the US Occupation Zone in Germany; appointed Army Chief of Staff. 1948 Retires from active military service; writes Crusade in Europe; named president of Columbia University. 1949–1951 Informally chairs the Joint Chiefs of Staff under newly created defense department; Korean War begins (1950); is appointed Supreme Commander of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); Dwight and Mamie buy the Gettysburg farm. 1956 Signs federal highway bill authorizing construction of interstate highways; elected president for second term. 1959 Signs legislation designating Alaska and Hawaii as 49th and 50th states; meets with Soviet Premier Khrushchev at Camp David, MD; Khrushchev visits Eisenhower farm and invites Eisenhower to visit USSR. 1952 Resigns as NATO’s Supreme Commander; US tests hydrogen bomb in South Pacific; Eisenhower is elected the first Republican president in 20 years. 1953 Establishes Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare; ends Korean War; Soviet Union (USSR) begins testing hydrogen bomb; Eisenhower delivers ”Atoms for Peace” speech, part of his campaign proposing 1969 Left to right David and Ida Eisenhower pose with their six sons in 1902. Dwight is at far left. Eisenhower poses before a tank at Camp Meade, MD, 1919. Eisenhower talks with men of Company E, 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment, at the 101st Airborne Division’s camp, Greenham Common, England, June 5, 1944. Mamie Eisenhower sat for this portrait in her pink silk inaugural gown embroidered with 2,000 rhinestones. Mamie regularly appeared on the Most Admired Women and Best Dressed lists. Her tightly curled bangs, styled by Elizabeth Arden, completed the “Mamie Look.” The Eisenhowers made a gift of their farm to the federal government in 1967 (with the agreement that Dwight and Mamie would live there for life), and Congress designated the property as Eisenhower National Historic Site. In 1978 Mamie explained why their Gettysburg property was so important to the couple who had once changed habitats about once a year, “We had only one home—our farm.” 1960 The Cold War U-2 Crisis 1960–1961 U-2 spy plane crisis erupts; US and USSR relations deteri1954–1955 Approves orate (Eisenhower’s trip development of spy satellites to USSR is cancelled); CIA’s and the U-2, a high-altitude covert Corona program aerial reconnaissance air1957–1958 Promises aid launches its first successful craft; Supreme Court rules for Middle Eastern nations to photoreconnaissance satelthat segregated schools are fight Communist aggression lite; Eisenhowers retire to illegal (Brown v. Board of (Eisenhower Doctrine); signs Gettysburg farm. Education); Eisenhower Civil Rights Act (first civil proposes Open Skies, a policy rights legislation in 82 years); 1969 Dies March 28, allowing mutual overflights sends troops to Little Rock, age 78; buried with full of US and USSR (Khrushchev AR, to enforce desegregation military honors in rejects); signs bill raising min- of Central High School; USSR Abilene, Kansas. imum hourly wage to $1; launches Sputnik, world’s suffers heart attack and sets first satellite; Eisenhower 1979 Mamie Eisenhower up temporary White House signs bill establishing Nation- dies November 1, age 82; at the farm in Gettysburg. al Aeronautics and Space and is buried beside her Administration (NASA); US husband at the Eisenhowtests intercontinental ballistic er Presidential Library in missiles (ICBM). Abilene. worldwide development of atomic energy. Leaving Washington in 1961 meant retirement at last. Mamie had once said, “How nice it will be to be free, to rest and to do as we like.” Instead, Eisenhower met with associates at his Gettysburg College office and wrote his memoirs. The family at the White House, Easter Sunday, 1956. Seated left to right: Grandchildren Anne, David, Susan, and baby Mary, Mamie Eisenhower, and daughterin-law Barbara. Standing: President Eisenhower and son John. gather information was probably undertaken.” It couldn’t have happened at a worse time, just days before the US, USSR, England, and France were to meet in Paris. The Summit Conference failed on May 16 when Khrushchev demanded an apology, and Eisenhower refused. Khrushchev condemned US spy activities and stormed out. he landed the Soviets were waiting. The USSR had captured a Cold War prize—proof that the US was secretly photographing Soviet military sites. CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers was flying a Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance airplane 70,000 feet over Soviet airspace when he was shot down on May 1, 1960. The Soviets tracking Powers had launched a surface-to-air missile, damaging the U-2’s wings. Powers ejected from the tumbling plane at 40,000 feet and opened his parachute at 15,000 feet. When The White House knew a plane was missing but, at first, did not know that the pilot had been captured. NASA issued a statement on May 3 that a “U-2 weather research plane” may have “accidentally violated Soviet airspace.” On May 7 Eisenhower received word at his Gettysburg farm that Khrushchev had smugly told the world that the Soviets had Powers (alive), his damaged plane, and its spy cameras. The US finally admitted “. . . such a flight over the Soviet Union to The U-2 crisis brought an end to Eisenhower’s efforts to implement an arms control agree­ment with the Soviets, and it closed the few months of détente (relaxing of international tensions) prompted by Khrushchev’s 1959 visit to the United States. Khrushchev examines the captured U-2 wreckage on May 11, 1960. The plane is still on display today in a Moscow museum. Eisenhower defends his U-2 policy on national television on May 25, 1960, explaining that aerial surveillance can help assure all humanity “. . . that they are safe from any surprise attack . . . .” NPS EISENHOWER PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY Dwight D. Eisenhower, October 17, 1961 During the 1920s and 1930s Eisenhower held a series of staff jobs and steadily rose in rank. By the early 1940s, with World War II at hand, he began to earn promotions—and stars—at record speed. In December 1943 he was named Supreme Allied Commander, for “Operation Overlord,” the cross-English Channel invasion. His orders were simple: “You will land in Europe and, proceeding to Germany, will destroy Following major renovations, the Eisenhowers planned to relax on weekends at their farm. In November 1955 their country home became a temporary White House while Eisenhower recuperated from a heart attack. Back in Washington, DC, the president received a steady stream of dignitaries. He invited visitors to Camp David, Maryland, for conferences, then for a tour of his farm. EISENHOWER PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY / SOVIET NEWS AGENCY, TASS . . . above all else, the good leader needs integrity— a deeply ingrained honor, honesty and decency. When the United States entered World War I in 1917, Eisenhower hoped for duty overseas. Instead, he served at Camp Colt in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, training soldiers for the army’s tank corps. Ike loved this town in the Appalachian foothills, about 50 miles south of where his ancestors had settled in the 1700s. Eisenhower’s wartime success earned him worldwide adoration. Politicians deemed the General—as he now was known—an attractive candidate. Instead, he chose the presidency of Columbia University in 1948. Anticipating retirement, Dwight and Mamie searched for rural property. In 1950 they bought a farm near Gettysburg, but their retirement was delayed for another decade. At the request of President Harry S. Truman, Eisenhower assumed command of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in Europe. © AP / WIDE WORLD PHOTOS PORTRAIT— WHITE HOUSE HISTORICAL ASSOC. / J. ANTHONY WILLS Hitler and all his forces.” On June 6, 1944, at Eisenhower’s direction, invasion forces hit the beaches at Normandy. The heroic efforts of the Allies brought an end to Nazi Germany—and peace to Western Europe. The satellite image beside him shows the San Diego North Island Naval Station from 70,000 feet, including aircraft and details as small as six-inch-wide parking lines. Home—At Last As John F. Kennedy’s inauguration drew to a close on January 20, 1961, the departing president and first lady quietly left Capitol Hill. After a farewell luncheon they headed north from Washington on snow covered roads. “And so we came to Gettysburg,” wrote General Eisenhower in the mid-1960s, “and to the farm we had bought eleven years earlier, where we expected to spend the remainder of our lives.” To Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower the red brick farmhouse that they purchased in 1950 from Allen Redding seemed custom-made for retirement. Although the house was in disrepair, its “big homey kitchen” appealed to Mamie, who explained that Ike loved to cook in his spare time, and they “could never think of buying a home that didn’t have a kitchen big enough for him to use with comfort.” When the remodeling began, the architects were surprised to find a decaying 200-year-old log cabin beneath the brick veneer. The house could not be saved. built a new house around these features. By March 1955 the house was finished, and Dwight and Mamie were owners of what architect Milton Osborne termed a “modified Georgian farmhouse,” complete with seven bedrooms, nine bathrooms, a stately living room, formal dining room, den, kitchen and butler’s pantry, and glassed-in porch. Disappointed, but determined to preserve a small piece of history, Mamie told construction workers to salvage what materials they could while dismantling the original structure. Builders retained part of the brickwork and the summer kitchen fireplace with a bake oven and The porch was Dwight and Mamie’s favorite room. Here they enjoyed the morning sun over breakfast and spent hours visiting with family and friends, reading, playing cards, watching television, and just relaxing while looking out over Pennsylvania’s rolling hills. EISENHOWER PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY Life on the General’s Farm Eisenhower began painting in 1948. He spoke modestly of his talent, “I don’t know anything about painting. . . . They are daubs, born of my love of color . . . .” Mamie was an ardent admirer and displayed his works prominently. Touring the Farm Self-Guiding Tours: Eisenhower Home, Grounds, Skeet Range, and Farm 2 • The Eisenhower Home retains nearly all its original furnishings and offers a glimpse into the life and times of Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower. • The grounds tour includes gardens, greenhouses, a tea house, and the brick barbecue where Eisenhower grilled enormous black Angus steaks. The garage (south end of barn) houses Eisenhower’s presidential limousine, golf carts, and station wagon. He used the golf cart to show guests around the farm. • The skeet range is an easy walk from the Reception Center. An exhibit details Eisenhower’s shooting prowess and explains the rules of trap and skeet. • The Farm 2 tour explores Eisenhower’s cattle operation. The show barn contains the herdsman’s office, cattle stalls, and farm machinery. Barn This 1887 bank barn held hay and straw on the top floor. The lower level first contained dairy ILLUSTRATION—NPS / CHRIS CASADY As president, Eisenhower used the farm for personal diplomacy, inviting world leaders to visit the house and cattle barns. It was a welcome respite from formal talks at nearby Camp David. Planning Your Visit cattle stanchions and stalls. In the mid-1950s it held stables for the horses and ponies that Eisenhower kept for his grandchildren. Secret Service Office Secret Service protection began at the farm in 1955, ceased in 1961, and resumed after President Kennedy’s assassination. Guest House Young David Eisenhower stayed here one summer while working for his grandfather as a farmhand. The bell is from the Pitzer schoolhouse that stood on the nearby property where son John and Barbara Eisenhower lived from 1959 to 1964. Eisenhower Home North of the fieldstone wing of the main house is a section salvaged from the original Redding farmhouse. Putting Green Ike loved golf. The Professional Golfers Association installed this putting green in the 1950s, complete with a sand trap. Flag Pole When President Eisenhower stayed here the flagpole displayed the presidential standard and the Stars and Stripes. After leaving the White House in 1961 he was reinstated as General of the Army and flew the five-star flag, today a symbol of Eisenhower at Gettysburg. Path to Farm 2 Cross the bridge to the site of the cattle operation (trail not recommended for wheelchairs). The culvert in the stream marks the boundary between Eisenhower’s farm and Farm 2 (acquired in 1954 by Eisenhower’s partner, W. Alton Jones, to raise purebred Angus). Herdsman’s Home This 1797 house was home for Bob Hartley, Eisenhower’s herdsman. Hartley charted breeding schedules, selected new Angus to improve the breed, and oversaw farm operations. Maternity Barn This barn, a luxury for a livestock operation, sheltered cows and newborn calves. Breeding and Tool Shed The north bay provided a breeding area for bulls and cows. Each mating was carefully recorded. The south bay held a workbench and tools. Loafing Shed This three-sided shed provided dry shelter in winter and shade in summer for animals. Bull Pens Breeding bulls lived here. Ankonian 3551 sired prize-winning offspring for over 10 years. NPS Reception Center and Shuttle Bus Stop Begin your visit at the Reception Center. It has information, a video, and restrooms. Exhibits highlight Eisenhower’s life, from his boyhood days in Abilene, Kansas, through his military and presidential years, to retirement at his Gettysburg farm. Eisenhower’s Black Angus Enterprise Eisenhower maintained a successful cattle enterprise, Eisenhower Farms, for 15 years. The business was composed of 189 acres of Eisenhower’s land and 306 adjoining acres owned by his partners. The Eisenhower Farms show cattle rapidly gained recognition in the Angus-raising community, winning grand championships at the Pennsylvania Farm Show and blue ribbons in major competitions across the United States. Eisenhower and herdsman Bob Hartley display a bull ready for the show ring. Eisenhower shared his enthusiasm for the cattle business with foreign leaders like Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, French President Charles de Gaulle, and Great Britain’s former Prime Minister Winston Churchill. An invitation to the farm was a highlight for dignitaries. IGPO: 2019—407-308/82407 Last updated 2019 Printed on recycled paper Show Barn To prepare for competitions, animals were brushed daily and bathed weekly. When to Visit Hours, Firearms Regulations programs, and services are on the park website. vary; call or check the park website. Accessibility We strive to make our facilities, serTours Buy tour tickets vices, and programs acces(first-come, first-served) at sible to all. For information go to the Reception Centhe Gettysburg National ter, ask a ranger, call, or Military Park Visitor Cencheck our website. ter, located one mile south of Gettysburg on PA 97. Ticket includes shuttle More Information bus and entrance to the Eisenhower home, grounds, and farm. National Historic Site 1195 Baltimore Pike Shuttle Bus This is the Suite 100 Gettysburg, PA 17325 only way to reach the 717-338-9114 historic site. Buy tickets www.nps.gov/eise and catch the bus at the Gettysburg National MiliEmergencies call 911 tary Park Visitor Center. Call or check the park Eisenhower National website for details. Historic Site is one of over 400 parks in the National Activities Explore on your own or ask if ranger- Park System. Learn more led programs are being of- at www.nps.gov. fered. Also ask about the Junior Ranger program.