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July 8, 1953

Instead of backtracking along Highway 36 through Decatur and Hannibal, the Trumans took Highway 40 home from Indianapolis. That took them on a more southerly route through Illinois and into St. Louis. Maybe they chose the different route to throw the press off their trail. If so, it worked. Harry and Bess went “missing” again that afternoon. After they left the McKinneys, there were no more reported sightings of the couple until they stopped for dinner in St. Louis at four o’clock, about five hours later.

It was on an earlier trip to St. Louis that the single most enduring image of Harry Truman was captured. On the afternoon of Thursday, November 4, 1948, less than forty-eight hours after his stunning upset in the presidential election, Truman was headed back to Washington on the Ferdinand Magellan when the train stopped briefly at Union Station in St. Louis. A crowd of several thousand turned out to greet the triumphant candidate. Among those who met Truman at the station that afternoon was his friend Charles Arthur Anderson, a World War I veteran and former Democratic congressman from Missouri. Somehow Anderson had obtained a copy of the early edition of the previous day’s Chicago Tribune. After Truman gave a short speech from the rear platform of the train, Anderson handed him the paper. Beaming, the newly elected president turned toward the crowd and held the paper aloft with both hands for all to see its famously erroneous headline: “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN.” A roar went up. “That’s one for the books,” said Truman laughing. At least three photographers standing shoulder to shoulder directly beneath the president captured the moment: Frank Cancellare of United Press, Pierce Hangge of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, and Byron Rollins of the Associated Press. Their photographs, so identical as to be nearly indistinguishable, would become iconic, a timeless commentary on the fallibility of polls, the virtues of perseverance, and the trustworthiness of the press.

Now, less than five years later, Harry had returned to St. Louis under considerably more modest circumstances. For dinner, he and Bess went to Schneithorst’s, a popular German restaurant at Lambert Field—the St. Louis airport. Yes, once upon a time airports were renowned for their fine dining. Air travel, after all, was glamorous and sophisticated. At the dawn of the jet age, people dressed up to fly, and the airport was a place for the beautiful and the rich, not metal detectors. (The FAA didn’t even require airlines to search passengers and baggage until 1973, after the D. B. Cooper hijacking.) Airports were tourist attractions, too. Thousands came to Lambert Field every month simply to stare in slack-jawed amazement at such modern marvels as the enormous four-engine Douglas DC-6s and Lockheed Constellations.

Schneithorst’s occupied a prized corner of Lambert Field’s terminal, a rectangular two-story brick building that resembled a high school. The restaurant looked out on the runway, so diners could enjoy the spectacle of takeoffs and landings with their Wiener schnitzel à la Holstein and potato pancakes. It was owned by Arthur Schneithorst, who’d held the airport concession since 1940. (As part of the deal, Schneithorst also provided in-flight meals for the airlines based in St. Louis.) He’d seen the restaurant through some lean years during the war, but now business was booming, and Schneithorst’s had become a St. Louis favorite.

How Harry Truman ended up at Schneithorst’s is anybody’s guess. Maybe it was recommended to him when he stopped for gas. Harry tended to regard the recommendations of service station attendants most highly. In any event, as had happened so often on their trip, Harry and Bess weren’t even recognized when they entered the restaurant. But a buzz soon filled the room, and all eyes turned from the runway to the middle-aged couple seated at a table in waitress Virginia Sullins’s section. They ordered veal cutlets.

One bold customer walked up to them to confirm their identities. Harry “admitted the charge,