Eisenhower National Historic Site - History

History

Dwight D. (Ike) Eisenhower had a long history with the Gettysburg area. His graduating class from West Point had visited the battlefield in 1915. In 1918 he was assigned to nearby Camp Colt in his first independent command as an army officer, commanding a tank training unit; he and Mamie Eisenhower were newly married.

Throughout his long army career, Dwight Eisenhower and his wife never had a house to call their own, with the couple moving from army post to army post. After he became Columbia University's president in 1948, Mamie requested that they finally have a place to call their own. A married couple that were friends with the Eisenhowers, George and Mary Allen, had recently purchased a small farm around Gettysburg, and recommended the area. In 1950, they found a "run-down farm" on the outskirts of Gettysburg, and purchased the farm and its 189 acres (76 ha) for $40,000 (equal to $386,390 today) from one Allen Redding, who had owned the farm since 1921. Eisenhower stated that he could feel the "forgotten heroisms" that occurred on the grounds as the Battle of Gettysburg.

When purchased, the 189 acres (0.76 km2) included 600 chickens, 25 cows, and many dilapidated buildings dating back to the 18th and 19th centuries. Renovation of the property was delayed when Eisenhower became supreme commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. After he had attained the presidency of the United States in 1953, Mamie had him rebuild the old house. Much of the original building had to be torn down, due to its deterioration. The total cost of renovation cost $250,000 (equal to $2,171,642 today), due partly to Mamie's whims and also to his wanting to appeal to labor unions, meaning he spent $65,000 (equal to $564,627 today) for the union help that had to come from 75 miles (121 km) away in Washington, D.C. on a daily basis to construct the farmhouse. In 1955, to celebrate the construction being finished (and it being the Eisenhowers' wedding anniversary), they threw a celebration party, the guests of which included the entire staff of the White House; as they didn't want the White House to go unstaffed, the staff went in two shifts, and were forever grateful to the Eisenhowers for including them in the festivities.

From its completion in 1955 to the end of Eisenhower's second term on January 20, 1961, the President spent 365 days total on the Gettysburg farm. The longest of these stays was 38 days, due to recovering from an heart attack he suffered in Colorado in 1955. Afterwards, the Eisenhowers spent most weekends and summer vacations at the Gettysburg Farm, sometimes going to both the Gettysburg farm and Camp David, prompting one person to call Camp David "an annex to Gettysburg".

The Gettysburg farm provided a few headaches. Democrats chose the amount of time the Eisenhowers spent at the Gettysburg farm as another way to attack him. Paul M. Butler, head of the Democratic National Committee, called him a part-time president due to his many stays in Gettysburg. When his World War II ally Bernard Montgomery visited the farm, speaking as military commander to military commander Eisenhower commented to Montgomery that he would have fired a subordinate that would initiate Pickett's Charge, which many Southerners saw as disrespecting the highly-esteemed Robert E. Lee, causing a protest. When the Soviet Union's premier Nikita Khrushchev visited the farm in September 1959, he was so "grandfathery" to the Eisenhower grandchildren that David Eisenhower said that Khrushchev was such a nice guy, he (David) could become a communist if he did not know better; causing much embarrassment to the Eisenhowers.

The Eisenhowers donated their home and farm (230 acres (93 ha) total at the time) to the National Park Service in 1967, maintaining lifetime living rights for the former president. Two years later, Eisenhower died at the age of 78. Mamie Eisenhower rejected the idea of moving to Washington to be closer to family and friends and, with the United States government allowing it, continued to live on the farm until her death in 1979, although the living area for Mamie was reduced to 14 acres (5.7 ha). The National Park Service opened the site in 1980.