Eisenhower's Birthplace

On one of our day trips to check out the history sites in our new home state of Texas, we went to Denison, Texas, a small town in Northeast Texas, to see the birthplace of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. After David and Ida Eisenhower's retail business failed in Hope, Kansas, they moved to Denison, TX where David found a job with the railroad as an engine wiper. David moved to Denison, ahead of the family, in 1889 and started working for $40 a month, then his wife Ida and their two small son's moved to join him soon after.

This is the bust inside the Welcome center.

This is a picture of David and Ida Eisenhower

The Eisenhower's rented a small house on Day Street in Denison for $8 a month. On October 14, 1890 their 3rd son, Dwight, was born in the Day Street home. The house was a small home, but the Eisenhower's took in a boarder to help the family financially. This house had no modern day conveniences, and that included running water. The homes in those days had a choice of getting their water from a cistern or a well. A cistern is a storage container that is usually stored underground where rainwater is stored. Why would you guess the Eisenhower house had a well instead of a cistern?

This is the rental house where President Dwight Eisenhower was born. You can see how close the train tracks were in front of the house.

This may be the room where Dwight was born.

The dining room in the house.

The Eisenhower's home had a train track that ran right in front of their house. It was literally in their front yard. With passing trains, comes soot. This house was in Texas, and obviously no air conditioner, so the windows and doors were open all the time. The house and all its furnishings were covered in soot, and that would include their roof. So having a cistern to collect rain water off their roof was not an option. They were left with the option of the labor intensive job of getting water from the well and carrying it to the house to do laundry, cooking and bathing. They would have to carry buckets of water weighing about 8 lbs many times a day. I would imagine when hanging laundry on the line that their wet clothes were a magnet for soot. They had to dust and sweep constantly to try to keep the house clean.

The coal stove in the very small kitchen.

The house had a coal burning stove and the cost of coal for a family was about $3 a ton. But, with living so close to railroad tracks the Eisenhower's only had to gather coal from along the tracks in front of their house where coal fell from passing trains.

The stove in the living room with a bucket of coal next to it.

David, Ida and their three sons only lived in Denison for for a few years and then moved on to Abilene, Kansas. David went to work for his brother-in-law at a creamery. The Eisenhower parents lived in Abilene for the rest of their lives.

Dwight didn't return to Texas until some 23 years later when he was stationed at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio as a second lieutenant in the Army. Dwight met his wife Mamie while Stationed in San Antonio. Dwight and Mamie were married on July 1, 1916.

Dwight at West Point.

Mamie before she was married.

Dwight, aka "Ike" was a five star General in the Army during WWII, he was the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe, and after the war he was the first Supreme Commander of NATO.  Ike served under President Harry Truman as Army Chief of Staff and then he was the President at Columbia University. Dwight ran for president of the US as a Republican in 1952 and won. He was the first president under the 22nd Amendment which instituted term limits of two terms for the office of president. President Eisenhower was the first President from Texas, he was the creator of NASA, he was responsible for the total desegregation of the US Armed Forces, and he created the interstate highway system. No wonder Denison is so proud to be the birthplace of Ike.

President Elect Eisenhower and Mamie just after the election.

Dwight Eisenhower's birthplace became a state park in 1958 during his presidency. The Park has a visitors center in a small house on the grounds that has a small museum that includes a film you can watch while waiting for your guided tour of the house. The house is one of the only houses still standing from the 1890s in the neighborhood. The home has been refurbished and filled with replica furniture and antiques from the correct time period. There is a statue of Ike next to the house and a small stretch of train tracks in front of the house where the original tracks were over 100 years ago.

This is the piece of tracks they have in its original place in front of the Eisenhower Home. You can see int he picture of the house above how close the tracks were to the house.

What a great history gem we found in Denison. Not only did we enjoy the Eisenhower Birthplace, but the gentleman in the visitors center told us about the Talimena National Scenic Byway in Oklahoma and Arkansas. We just took a trip there over Easter Weekend. More blog material to share, Yippee!