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610 North Delaware Street

Image of the Colonial Revival-style Foster House.

Resource 086 610 North Delaware Street (in 2011) Classification: Contributing. Historic Name: Foster House. Architectural Style: Colonial Revival. Construction Date: ca. 1928. Period 3 of Harry S Truman's Life: Developing Political Skills and Associations, 1920-1933. Tax Identification: 26-310-20-14. Legal Description: McCauley Park Addition, block 1, lot 8 and south half of lot 7. Description: Contributing two-story brick dwelling; rectangular in shape; gambrel roof with composition shingles; brick exterior; multi-paned double-hung sash windows framed by shutters; small porch centered on façade with bowed gable roof that has boxed eaves at gable ends, supported by tapered Doric columns; decorative wood fan over front door; brick foundation with daylight basement. Elevated terraced lot with brick retaining wall along sidewalk; foundation shrubbery and hedges along property lines. In the southeast corner of the front yard is a large historic bur oak under which Bess Wallace Truman, born in 1885, and her younger brothers played as small children when the Wallace family lived at nearby 608 North Delaware Street between roughly 1888 and 1899. • Property also includes a contributing wood-frame double-car garage with wood double-leaf doors, probably dating from period of house construction [Resource 087]. History/Significance: The family of David W. and Madge Wallace, including Bess Wallace Truman, lived in a Queen Anne style house on this property (then 608 North Delaware) from around 1890 to 1903. Although that house no longer stands, a large burr oak tree, dating from the time of the Wallace occupancy, still stands in the southeast corner of the front yard of the present home at 610 North Delaware Street. Bess Wallace and younger brother Frank played under the tree as small children. Harry Truman lived only two blocks away [Resource 556], and they attended school together as teenagers. Truman may have walked by his future wife's home every day on his way to school, from the fifth grade through high school. The present Colonial Revival house, dating from around 1928, may have been built for the Charles C. Foster family; they occupied the house in 1930. Charles C. Foster managed a builder's outlet store with his father, George B. Foster, Sr., in Boonville, Missouri, in the 1920s. After the death of Charles C. Foster's mother in 1931, Charles's father remarried and moved to Minnesota. Charles Foster owned the Foster Outlet Store in Independence for several years. Note: The Wallace family did not live “nearby.” The house the Wallace family lived in a house on this lot, but was removed before this house was built. The address changed from 608, which is what it was when the Wallaces lived here, to 610, which is the current address. See the History/Significance section. Also, although not mentioned in the 2011 nomination, it was in the earlier Queen Anne style house that Bess Wallace’s father, David, committed suicide in 1903. See Resources 042 and 078 for more information. – JW

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Harry S. Truman National Historic Site, Code: HSTR

610 North Delaware Street, Independence, Harry S. Truman National Historic Site, Jackson County, Missouri
Latitude: 38.9012985229492, Longitude: -94.5307006835938

NPS.gov Collection

05/01/2011

01/01/0001

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