President Harry S. Truman opens the first White House bowling alley on this day in 1947. The two lane bowling alley, situated in the West Wing, had been constructed earlier that year.
Harry S. Truman Thirty-third President of the United States (32nd to serve, although officially designated as the 33rd). He was born on May 8, 1884 at Lamar, Mo. Educated in the public schools of Independence, Mo. and a student at the Kansas City School of Law. In WWI he served from first lieutenant to major with Battery F, and later Battery D, of the 129th Field Artillery, 35th Division, participating in the Vosges operations, St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne offensives of the A.E.F. He was discharged as a major in May, 1919. Since 1927 he has been a colonel of Field Artillery in the reserves. Following the war he was a judge of the Jackson Co. Court (1922-24), and presiding judge, 1926-34. He was elected U.S. senator from Missouri in 1934, and reelected in 1940. In the senate he distinguished himself as chairman of a special committee to investigate the national defense program. On Nov. 7, 1944 he was elected vice president of the United States on the ticket with Franklin D. Roosevelt, q.v., taking office on Jan. 20, 1945. On the death of Roosevelt, he succeeded him to the presidency on April 12, 1945. He was elected president in 1948, and served the term of 1949-53. Thus, he served two terms in that office, less approximately three months. He is the author of Years of Decisions, Vol. I in 1955, and the companion volume, Years of Trial and Hope, Vol. II, 1956. Truman petitioned Belton Lodge No. 450, Grandview, Mo. on Dec. 21, 1908 when 24 years old. He was elected on Feb. 9, 1909, and received his first degree that evening. He was passed March 9, and raised March 18, 1909. The following year he accepted the station of junior warden, but in 1911, several members of Belton Lodge separated to establish a new lodge Grandview Lodge No. 618, and Truman was honored by being made the first master. Later, he served as secretary of the lodge, and in 1917, when leaving for WWI, he was again master of the lodge. After the war he was appointed district deputy grand lecturer, and district deputy grand master of the 59th Masonic district. He remained in these stations from 1925 until his appointment in the grand lodge line in 1930. In that year he became grand pursuivant through the appointment of Grand Master.