For more about Kansas City area history, visit the town of Independence (tel. 800/748-7323; www.visitindependence.com), a 20-minute drive east, with its Harry S. Truman Home National Historic Site, 219 N. Delaware, which remains virtually unchanged since the Trumans lived here (tickets sold at the Truman Home Ticket & Information Center, Truman and Main sts.; tel. 816/254-9929; www.nps.gov/hstr); the Truman Presidential Museum & Library, U.S. 24 and Delaware (tel. 816/268-8200; www.trumanlibrary.org), with objects from Truman's presidency, including gifts from foreign heads of state and a reproduction of the Oval Office; the National Frontier Trails Center, 318 W. Pacific (tel. 816/325-7575; www.frontiertrailsmuseum.org), an excellent museum documenting the Santa Fe, Oregon, and California trails; and the Bingham-Waggoner Estate, 313 W. Pacific (tel. 816/461-3491; www.bwestate.org), a 22-room, 1885 mansion and former home of Missouri artist George Caleb Bingham that's open April to October.
