Inaugural Museum

Buffalo and Lancaster are both home to former presidents, but only Buffalo is the home to an inaugural site: The Teddy Roosevelt Inaugural Site.

Taken in early March

The museum is open daily, but the only way to actually see the house is to take one of the tours with the first one at 9:30 am on weekdays, and 12:30 pm on weekends. I happened to be there on a slow Saturday in early March. You can click visit the museum's site (here) to see about pricing.

The house itself was built in the 1840s as officer headquarters for the Buffalo Barracks, but in 1883, it was purchased as a wedding present by Dexter Rumsey for his daughter, Mary Grace. She married Ansley Wilcox, a local lawyer, and the family lived there until 1933.

The house sits on Delaware Avenue, one of the main north south streets in Buffalo, and home to many of the old beautiful mansions. Sitting just south of North Street, the home is in what was once considered the society center of Buffalo. Many of the old mansions have now been destroyed or turned into office buildings or hotels, but you can still get a glimpse of Buffalo at the turn of the 20th Century.

The tour itself takes about an hour and walks you through both the house and the events surrounding the inauguration. One of the pieces I most enjoyed was a ten to twenty minute overview of the American culture Roosevelt faced: the balance between the workers and the owners, race relations, gender inequalities, and the nation on the global stage. Much of it I knew from history, but much of it I didn't know.

When the overview is finished, the tour takes you to the room where the inauguration took place. I found this room the most interesting because it actually has actors playing the scene for us. There are no actors, just a voice recording, but it sounds as though you are in the room with them. For a writer, it was absolutely fascinating to see the combination of actual location with invisible acting.

Once finished downstairs, the tour goes upstairs for a visit to Teddy's Oval Office which is more interactive. The last portion of the second floor is a rotating gallery so what I saw will probably not be the same someone else might see.

All in all, I found the tour to be interesting and educational. I don't know if it would work for children much under school age, but it would work for those in school and older. If you are a history buff, or even just someone who likes the Victorian Age (though technically, Teddy was president during the Edwardian Era), the Teddy Roosevelt Inaugural Site is a place to visit.