Feature 048: 305 North Delaware Street (in 2011)

Classification: Contributing.
Historic Name: Walker/Peters House.
Architectural Style: Prairie School.
Construction Date: ca. 1912.
Period 2 of Harry S Truman’s Life: Establishing Community Roots, 1890-1919.
Tax Identification: 26-310-22-07.
Legal Description: McCauley Park Addition, part of lot 1.
Description: Contributing two- and one-half story wood-frame dwelling; hip roof with hip roof dormers clad with composition shingles; brick exterior (first floor), synthetic siding (second floor); one-over-one double-hung sash vinyl windows; gable roof porch with square brick posts on brick piers across facade; uncoursed cut stone-faced foundation with daylight basement. This property is located directly across Truman Road, to the north, from the Truman Home. As a result, its occupants were neighbors and friends of the Trumans. Slightly elevated corner lot with lawn; shrubs and shade trees.
• Alterations: There is a one-story shed-roof brick addition to the rear (east).
• Contributing one-story wood-frame garage located in rear, facing West Truman Road [Feature 049].
History/Significance: The Peters family, life-long friends of Harry Truman, resided in this house by 1920. The son of W.T. and Annie Mize Peters, Mize Peters was a boyhood friend of Harry Truman. As an adult, he owned and operated a drugstore on the southeast corner of the Courthouse Square, knows as Peters Pharmacy [currently Feature 181]. He also became active in the Boy Scouts, serving as a district chair and, later, a honorary chairman of the Boy Scouts.
After the Peters family sold the house, several Presbyterian ministers lived at 305 North Delaware, including Reverend Jay H. Logan (late 1940s), Reverend Paul Bischoff (1950s), and Thomas Melton (1960s) and their respective neighborhood acquaintance with Harry Truman continued. Melton and Truman often took morning walks together around the North Delaware Street neighborhood.
Wyatt Walker probably had this house built for his family sometimes between 1908 and 1916. In 1908, Wyatt Walker operated his own grocery in Independence, "W.L. Walker and Sons," located on the Courthouse Square. Harry B. Walker, who also resided at 305 North Delaware, clerked there until 1912 when he became a policeman. The Walkers continued to live in this house until the late 1910s.