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Dwight David Eisenhower Grayson County's Most Famous Son
The 1891-1892 Denison City Directory lists David Eisenhower as living
at the northeast corner of South Lamar Avenue and East Day Street.
The
official address of President Eisenhower's birthplace is now (2017) 609
South Lamar, but at the time the city acquired the property from E.H.
Mullin in early 1946, the address was 201 East Day. The above map of
the block, adapted from the 1914 Sanborn Fire Map, shows "201" on the
south side of the block. (Editor's
note: The block is actually shown on two earlier fire maps, 1903 &
1908, but the 1914 is the first year that shows the correct addresses
in sequence of the properties along the south side of Shepherd Street.) Note
that the adapted Sanborn Fire Map shows the Texas & Pacific
railroad track cutting north-south through the east side of the block;
the track was not laid until early 1896. The excavation and
grading of
the roadbed was done in the waning months of 1895. The former
Eisenhower house at 226 E. Shepherd was sacrificed to the railroad.
The little blue finger on the map points to where the house sat
prior to the railroad's arrival. Consider for the moment where we
would be today if the Eisenhower family had not decided to make the
move of slightly less than two blocks. Ike would have been born
on Shepherd Street, the house would have been demolished five years
later, and visitors to Ike's birthplace would have nothing to view but
an empty lot.
The 1889-1890 City Directory lists David J. Eisenhower as living at 226 E. Shepherd Street. The directory does not list his wife, Ida, because women were not listed in the early directories unless, in the case of widows, there were no men in the household to list. However, it can be deduced that Ida and the two oldest sons were living in Denison with the elder David Eisenhower at the time the 1889 - 1890 city directory was compiled. 
The
clipping from The Sunday Gazetteer below states that the compilation of
the 1889-1890 directory was about to begin the last week of June 1889.
A
second clipping, dated the first week of October 1889, confirms the
1889-1890 city directory was compiled two months earlier. The two
announcements, taken together, date the compilation month of July
1889, give or take a week. When the canvasser for the city
directory came to the door at 225 E. Shepherd, David Eisenhower's
wife and sons had been in Denison for at least two months, and perhaps
as many as five months. When David left them in Hope, Kansas, in
the fall of 1888, Ida was pregnant with their second son, Edgar, who
was born in Kansas on January 19, 1889. The Phillips & Hassel
Grayson County History says Ida and the children arrived in
Denison in February 1889. Jean Edward Smith's 2012 biography
of President Eisenhower says they came in April 1889. Either way,
Ida and the boys had moved to Denison before the 1889-1890 City
Directory was compiled in July 1889. The listing below of the
even-numbered houses in the 200 block of Shepherd Street for six
consecutive years, 1887-1892, shows the the five houses remained the
same, with the house at 200 by itself on the west end of the block and
the other four located on the east half of the block.
200 blk East Shepherd Street, south side, 1887-88 Denison City Directory
200 blk East Shepherd Street, south side, 1889-90 Denison City Directory
200 blk East Shepherd Street, south side, 1891-92 Denison City Directory
The
reason that David Eisenhower rented the house at South Lamar Avenue and
Day Street and moved his family into it is unknown; the location of the
Lamar & Day house was a block farther west and thus a block closer
to the MKT shops where David worked.
Other
mentions of the 1891-1892 Denison City Directory in the Gazetteer
indicate that the 1891-1892 City Directory was compiled in the month
of September 1890, just weeks before Ike was born on October 14, 1890.
That leaves a window of more than a year, July 1889 - September
1890, for the family's move to Ike's birthplace. However, it
seems likely that the move was made sooner in the year's span since all
of the family recollections of their time in Denison reference only the
second house, the one at the corner of S. Lamar Avenue & Day
Street.
1896 Bird's Eye View Map of Denison After
Ike was born, the family continued to live in the same house for the
remainder of 1890 and all of 1891 and at least a few weeks in 1892
before they left for Tyler, en route back home to Kansas.
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