The Elms Hotel, Excelsior Springs

The town of Excelsior Springs grew up around a legend. In eighteen eighty, a man named Travis Mellion brought his daughter, who was gravely ill, to drink from and bathe in a natural mineral spring that local people had described as having healing power. The young woman recovered. Word spread fast. Within a year, two hundred homes had been built, and what had been scrubland became a health resort destination drawing visitors from across the Midwest.

At the center of that resort economy stood the Elms Hotel. Earlier versions of the hotel burned, and the present building opened its doors in nineteen twelve in a grand limestone structure fitted with steel framing and reinforced concrete. Three thousand visitors came on opening day alone. The Elms became one of the region's premier retreats, advertising mineral baths, mineral waters, and the promise of restored health.

Prohibition transformed the Elms into something more complicated. Kansas City in the nineteen twenties and thirties operated under the political machine of Tom Pendergast, a boss who tolerated organized crime as a matter of policy. The Elms, conveniently located an hour east of Kansas City, became a favored retreat for figures who needed discretion. Al Capone was said to have used a basement room during visits to the region. Whether or not the stories are exactly right, the hotel had a reputation for accommodating guests who preferred that questions not be asked.

On election night in nineteen forty-eight, a very different kind of guest arrived. Harry S. Truman, the president from Missouri who almost no one expected to win, checked into the Elms to await results. When he woke the following morning, he had beaten Thomas Dewey in one of the greatest upsets in presidential election history. The photograph of Truman holding a newspaper that mistakenly announced his defeat was taken the next day in Saint Louis, but the news that he had actually won reached him here.