Eisenhower's Visits to Martinsburg

Donald Trump’s campaign stop in October of 2020 was of course big news, but he was not the first president to land at the airport at Martinsburg. President Dwight D. Eisenhower made at least three trips here in the 1950s.

As the commander of the Allied forces in World War 11 and as President, Eisenhower was immensely popular. Although it’s hard to imagine in this partisan era, he was rarely, if ever, criticized by the media. He won both presidential elections, in 1952 and in 1956, by landslides.

From 1950 to 1956 his brother, Milton Eisenhower, was president of Penn State University. At the time the airport at Martinsburg was the closest one to State College, so when he visited his brother he would fly here in his presidential airplane, the Columbine.

During those years the airport terminal was located at the end of Spring Street in Martinsburg, not far from my house; a short bike ride away, so each time that we heard the news that he was going to be coming, all the kids in the neighborhood immediately went there.

I remember seeing Secret Service agents arriving by automobile just before his plane landed. They drove a brown Pontiac station wagon. Their khaki suits, wrinkled from the long ride from Washington, D.C, made them very conspicuous when they got out. They would immediately fan out among the crowd that would gather along the chain link fence that surrounded the landing area.

President Eisenhower would always waive and smile to everyone, then get in the waiting limousine and leave with his motorcade. One time I saw him when the motorcade passed by at the corner of Penn and South Market streets — he looked out and waived. These visits happened several times until 1956 when his brother left Penn State.

I saw him again several times when I was at Gettysburg College. He and Mamie Eisenhower had retired to their farm outside the town. The college offered him a separate building for a private office, which he visited occasionally. He would always smile and greet anyone who passed by on his way to and from there.

The last time that I saw him was on Nov. 19, 1963, when he spoke at the 100th anniversary of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address at the National Cemetery in Gettysburg. In checking that date, I read that the principal speaker was to have been then President John F. Kennedy; however he declined because he had an upcoming commitment to go to Dallas. As we now know, that was not a good choice for him.