American Travel Journal: William Howard Taft National Historic Site

The William Howard Taft National Historic Site includes two buildings open to the public. The first is the Taft Education Center and the second is Taft's boyhood home in the Mt. Auburn district of Cincinnati, Ohio. Taft was the 27th President and 10th Chief Justice of the United States, the only person to have held both offices.

The Education Center contains an information desk, restrooms, exhibit hall and small theater. The sixteen minute video William Howard Taft, Public Servant serves as an orientation to Taft and the site. Produced by the National Park Service in 2014, it continues a long tradition of excellent multimedia productions by the NPS.

Taft Education Center

Exhibit hall

Shadow boxes

Taft's birthplace and childhood home is immediately south of the Taft Education Center. Rangers offer guided tours of several furnished rooms on the first floor of the building. Visitors are then encouraged to continue on their own to visit upstairs where numerous displays depict both the private and public life of Taft.

Much of the backyard of Taft's youth is no longer part of the property, but is part of the Hamilton County Juvenile Court Youth Center.

The three-story addition added before Taft was born is visible in this side view of 2038 Auburn Avenue

Front of the house

Porch on the back of the original building

Another view of the addition

View from the rear

Furnished bedroom for baby William

Front corner office of William's father, Alphonso Taft

Piano in the parlor

Back stairs in the addition

Formal dining room

Looking down the front stairs at the front door

The self-guided portion of the tour is mostly on the upper floor of the house. Information about Taft's parents, siblings, wife, and children is provided on a series of displays. Other displays recall his childhood in Cincinnati. Many of his appointments to posts such as Solicitor General, U.S. appellant judge in the Sixth District, Civil Governor of the Philippines, and Secretary of War are also chronicled.

Hand-picked by Theodore Roosevelt to be his successor, in spite of the fact Taft was a very reluctant candidate, William Howard Taft was elected as the 27th President of the United States in 1908. He served one-term from 1909 until 1913, having come in third behind Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt in the 1912 election. Taft was finally appointed to the position he had always wanted, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, in 1921. He was the tenth Chief Justice and served until resigning days before his death in 1930. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.