Fresh gravel was spread along the 32-mile route between the summer lodge and Rapid City. Large projects were immediately undertaken to ensure the summer White House would be ready for the president. By voyaging to the granite hills and fluting valleys of the Black Hills, 8 Coolidge established a summer White House further west than any president before him. The campaign assured the president that he could “…fish all day…sleep well at night….ride into the Executive Offices at Rapid City three or four times a week….and come back to Washington a new man.” 7 Coolidge agreed. Stories of the beautiful landscape and plentiful spots for trout fishing were brazenly advertised. Upon hearing this news, South Dakotans initiated a campaign to lure the president to the Black Hills. Near the end of Coolidge’s third summer in office, he announced his desire to vacation out in the American West. 6 Henceforth, the hobby became a trademark pastime of Coolidge vacations. It was during Coolidge’s 1926 New York vacation to White Pine Camp in the Adirondacks 5-under the guidance of his Head of Secret Service detail Edmund Starling-that the president became an avid fisherman. Docked nearby was the presidential yacht Mayflower, which the president and his family used frequently for cruising.
President Coolidge’s Vermont vacation was followed by an excursion to the family’s White Court seaside mansion on the rocky shores of Swampscott, Massachusetts. 3 Reporters who traveled with the president caught a glimpse into the childhood surroundings of “Silent Cal.” 4 Perhaps the newspapermen better understood the president’s unique mannerisms by experiencing the humble quarters in which a young Calvin Coolidge grew up in. 2 An office for Coolidge was established on the second floor of the Plymouth Notch general store his family had once operated.
1 One year later, Coolidge and his family returned to Vermont for one of his initial retreats as president. His sabbatical was unique among presidential vacations.īeside a faintly-lit oil lamp in August 1923, Vice President Coolidge was sworn in as the 30th President of the United States at his ancestral home in Plymouth Notch, Vermont. After two vacations along the east coast, however, the president decided to spend a summer in the Black Hills of South Dakota. President Coolidge often did the same in the early years of his administration. Many commanders in chief returned home to briefly relax while fulfilling their presidential duties. The first vacations of President Calvin Coolidge were not very different from those of past presidents.
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