Looking Back
When the White House Moved to Gettysburg
One afternoon in August 1959, President Dwight Eisenhower walked into the Hotel Gettysburg wearing one golf shoe and one street shoe.
He had come to the hotel immediately after finishing a golf game and didn’t notice his mix-up of shoes until he walked into the hotel lobby. A Secret Service agent rushed out to the car to get the other street shoe and brought it to the president.
The president wasn’t the only person surprised. A number of people in the hotel hadn’t been expecting him. According to the Gettysburg Times, only a handful of people had seen him arrive, but word spread through town quickly. When he left the hotel a half hour later, hundreds had gathered outside the hotel to wait for him to appear.
A young nine-year-old girl, Kit Campbell from Terre Haute, was visiting Gettysburg on vacation and was able to get the president’s autograph.
“As the President entered his car for the three-mile trip back to his farm, Kit thrust a small notebook into an open window. Eisenhower, who doesn’t grant many requests for autographs, signed it for her,” the Gettysburg Times reported.
Eisenhower had come to the hotel because it was serving as the “temporary White House” during an extended working vacation the president had taken. He had decided to spend more time at his farm in Gettysburg for a while, but he couldn’t ignore the needs of the country.
It was done with some planning, unlike the first time Eisenhower had created a temporary White House, which had been done out of necessity. In 1955, while recovering from a heart attack, White House operations had been moved to the Eisenhower Farm, just south of Gettysburg. He had recuperated in his comfortable surroundings while using his den as a place to conduct the business of the country.
Because of the additional planning and the previous experience of working from his home, officials realized that the farm couldn’t accommodate offices for White House staff, communications, the press operation, and meetings. Not only was more space needed, but more of the right type of space.
The president’s temporary Oval Office was on the hotel’s main floor and is now identified as the Eisenhower Room. It is not entirely original and may not be the exact dimensions or locations since a fire gutted the hotel in 1983, and it had to be rebuilt. One contemporary report said that Eisenhower’s office was located in a three-room suite on the second floor (At the time, the hotel only had three floors). A moving truck brought his White House desk and other furniture to the hotel for his use.
The hotel’s ballroom was used as the press room from 1955 through 1959. In some reports, this is called a gymnasium adjacent to the hotel. Guest rooms were used as needed for other offices and temporary accommodations.
The arrangement worked well enough. On August 12, 1959, Eisenhower held a presidential news conference in a gymnasium adjacent to that office, attended by 95 reporters. The nearby Majestic Theater (which is connected to the hotel today) was used for the White House press operation, giving Press Secretary James Hagerty room to brief reporters and giving journalists space to prepare and transmit their stories.
During this time, Eisenhower lived and entertained at the farm. He would golf in the morning, then return home for a while. He would spend about an hour in the office attending to essential items that could only be handled by the president. Then he would return to the farm for lunch. If he needed to meet with other leaders or officials, he did it at the farm.
It was during this working vacation that he returned from a conference in Europe at the end of August. He spent time in Gettysburg preparing for a meeting with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev about the Berlin crisis. Although the White House had shifted back to Washington, D.C., when Khrushchev arrived in mid-September, Eisenhower did meet with the premier at Camp David and took him to visit the Gettysburg farm.
