Truman Day Celebration

From Truman Day Celebration Website:

Barton County Chamber of Commerce in Lamar, Missouri is proud to announce their plans to join forces with the Missouri State Parks for this years Annual Truman Day Celebration on Saturday May 7th 2016.

Truman Day celebrates the Birth of President Harry S. Truman and has traditionally been held in two locations - Lamars Downtown Constitution Square and at the President Harry S. Truman Birthplace State Historic Site.

The decision to centralize this years event at the Birthplace not only gives added attention to a beloved local tourist attraction, which brings in thousands of visitors from around the world each year, but it creates less road closures than past Truman Day events. This allows traffic to more easily reach, not only homes in the downtown area during the six hour event, but businesses as well.

In previous years parts, if not all, of the streets on the downtown square were closed in an effort to assure the safety of the public. Unfortunately, these efforts hindered downtown daytime business and were, as a result, contradictory to the Chambers mission statement.

Additionally, attempts were made in the past to connect the two separate events put on by the Chamber and the State. This was done by closing down all of 11th Street from the Square to Truman Street. Unfortunately, these efforts proved unsuccessful with a large portion of attendees going only to one event or the other.

It is the hope of the Chamber to resolve these issues by combining the events out of the way of local businesses & a majority of Lamar residents while also keeping the focus on the central theme for the event: President Harry S. Truman.

Components of both the event on the Square and the Truman Birthplace will remain a part of the 2016 event. A map of the event grounds & road closures is included below. Missouri State Parks will be providing staff to direct vendors and visitors to parking areas on the day of the event as well as any emergency thru traffic.

Vendor registration will be open soon at the Barton County Chamber website: http://www.********.*** For more information please call the Barton County Chamber at (***) ***-****.