Butler has had many famous visitors during its 200 plus years of existence, beginning with the Marquis de Lafayette and Tom Thumb in the 19th century to Buffalo Bill Cody, Clara Barton, jazz great Lionel Hampton and others during the 20th century.

But that’s not all. Add to the honor roll those who would either become or who had once been the President of the United States!

James Buchanan, James Garfield and John F. Kennedy came to town before holding the highest office in the land. Only Republican William Howard Taft, our 27th president, who had built and occupied the first Oval Office in 1909, offered residents with the chance to see, meet and greet a man who had already occupied the White House.

Let’s travel back in time to the day before Thanksgiving: Nov. 27, 1918, when the city was bubbling with excitement and ready to welcome a visit from William Howard Taft.

The town was not only celebrating the signing of the Armistice silencing the guns on the western front of World War I, which had happened weeks earlier, but also eagerly awaiting the 11:40 a.m. arrival of the former president, who had succeeded to the highest office in the land previously held by his close friend — and later political enemy — Teddy Roosevelt. That evening Taft was scheduled to deliver a speech at the Majestic Theater in downtown Butler.

The visit was one stop on a speaking tour to gain public support for the creation of the League of Nations, proposed to foster world peace and prevent future conflicts, a vision championed by the man who had denied Taft a second term in 1912: Woodrow Wilson. The previous evening, Taft had spoken in New Wilmington at Westminster College.

The following morning, Taft — who, by the way, was the first president to own a car — set off by automobile to nearby New Castle after receiving a rousing send off by Westminster students. Later, at the county seat of Lawrence County, he was met by a contingent of nearly 50 prominent Butler community leaders representing the Chamber of Commerce. That group — including Mayor Joseph Heineman, plus prominent oilman T.W. Phillips Jr., who like his father would later serve in Congress, and his brother Ben — had departed early that morning by chartered streetcar to meet Taft and accompany him back to Butler for a full day of activities.

Leaving an hour behind schedule, the streetcar with its distinguished entourage wound through several small hamlets along the way, cheered on by crowds gathered on the side of the tracks waving welcome.

As it passed through Lyndora, men in starched white collared shirts sprang from their desks to watch the historic moment from the windows of the office building of Standard Steel Car Works (later Pullman Standard). Completing the rail journey a few blocks from the beautiful stone and brick Broad Street School, the riders on the Butler “party car” disembarked for automobiles waiting in front of the elementary school.

Escorted by 20 state troopers, the line of automobiles motored up Penn Street and were met by the Moose Lodge Band to join the procession as a musical escort at the intersection with Chestnut Street. Several blocks later, the cars turned and headed up Main Street on their way to attend a noontime luncheon being held in Taft’s honor inside Butler’s finest hostelry, the Nixon Hotel.

Buildings along Butler’s prosperous downtown shopping district were specially decorated for his visit with the “Stars and Stripes,” along with the flags from our World War I Allies fluttering in the breeze as the small parade slowly passed.

Three thousand excited Butler school children stood at attention lining the sidewalks, offering a salute to the man who had begun the tradition in 1910 of throwing out the first pitch to mark the start of the major league baseball season. The always congenial 61-year-old native of Cincinnati, Ohio, nicknamed “Big Lub” as a college wrestler at Yale due to his large size, doffed his hat, smiled, waved, and returned the salutes.

Renamed the “Big Chief” during his 1909-1913 term of office, the car carrying Taft along with his fellow riders, stopped across from Diamond Park in front of the six-story, red brick and gray stone Nixon Hotel. Out stepped the three men, removing their hats as the hotel doorman held open the double front doors to allow them to proceed inside.

The Nixon lobby pulsated with people wishing to catch sight of the former president. Before attending the scheduled 12:30 p.m. reception in the hotel’s elegant Corinthian columned, white-tableclothed dining room, Taft felt compelled to speak to the adoring crowd. From the second-floor balcony, Taft teased onlookers with a preview of the speech to be delivered later that evening at the Majestic Theater. Peering down at the crowd below, he spoke prophetic words: “Unless a machinery was adopted at the peace table to prevent future wars, the sacrifices … on the fields of battle would be in vain.”

Following the lunch, where Taft spoke informally on many topics with local business leaders, he excused himself to travel by car a few blocks to North McKean Street to talk to the students of Butler Senior High School.

Taft was warmly received in the auditorium of the yellow brick landmark, which later served as the junior high before being demolished in 1987, a Neoclassical “temple of learning” designed to inspire students with its massive pink sandstone Doric columns and the sculpture of Athena, the Greek goddess of learning, peering down from her lofty perch high above the entrance. As Taft walked beneath her gaze that day, he hoped like Athena, to convey wisdom to the next generation of Americans.

With his jovial personality and broad grin, he emboldened them with a serious challenge: “The future of the nation is depending on young America and the part they are to play in the future of the country … and [ he advised them] to take a deep interest in current day events.”

As the heaviest president in U.S. history — packing 350 pounds onto his frame, despite shedding 70 pounds after leaving office----Taft probably returned to the Nixon to take a short rest in the hotel’s Presidential Suite, where he was to spend the night and to try to not get stuck in the bathtub. Preparing for an evening dinner invitation in the home of Butler’s wealthiest resident, gas and oil company president T.W. Phillips Jr., Taft likely changed into more formal dinner attire and styled his handlebar mustache in the mirror of his room’s golden oak mantel.

Down the elegant main staircase he went and entered the lobby sometime after 5:30 p.m., then sauntered out the front doors and into a waiting limousine. Traveling down Butler’s yellow brick Main Street, the presidential car motored up and into Butler’s Institute Hill neighborhood arriving at the 6 p.m. dinner party being held in his honor. Taft’s limo parked outside of one of Butler’s grandest homes — a beautiful 1910 yellow brick mansion. The home sat majestically crowned by an orange terracotta roof at the top of Second Street, providing the guests with commanding views of the city.

During dinner in the fashionable Mission style of the home’s interior, it’s not hard to imagine Phillips mentioning to the former president that his father a Congressman, had been a close friend of the 20th U.S. president, the assassinated James A. Garfield.

After the meal concluded, the gregarious former president strolled on foot under the glow of the gas streetlights from the Phillips'’s home descending through town, chuckling and greeting people on the way to deliver his speech at 8 p.m. at the Majestic Theater, a landmark building still located today on the southwest corner of East Cunningham and South McKean streets.

After making his grand entrance, Taft made his way toward the stage of the sold-out event nodding to people seated in the auditorium’s long rows of seats. A spontaneous burst of applause erupted, while those in the crowd turned their heads as if trying to catch a glimpse of a bride coming down the aisle at a wedding.

He made just one brief stop: En route Taft was stopped by a father who wished to present his children to the former president. Several of the man’s older children stood awe-struck by their father’s side, but a 4-year-old daughter, named Nancy, who was on her father’s arm, received Taft’s most-focused attention.

“Hello Nancy, how are you?” he asked.

With no understanding of the importance of the man who had just addressed her, Nancy replied with unimpressed innocence “Hello Bill, I’m fine!”

As he ascended on to the stage, Taft was met by a contingent of 300 local dignitaries seated behind the gold leaf proscenium arch. As Taft sat down, the audience began singing along with the theater’s orchestra, which seconds before had struck up “The Star-Spangled Banner” and the first two verses of “America.”

After he was introduced by Phillips, the gentleman for whom everyone had purchased their ticket at Clarence Dixon’s Drugstore to see, rose from his seat to speak from the lectern positioned in the center of the stage. Taft spoke words of appreciation to the people of Butler for their warm welcome before delivering the speech he hoped would gain support for The League of Nations.

Interrupted on several occasions by approving applause, he engaged the audience by touching on the “War to End all Wars,” which had ended with a cease-fire just a few weeks before, and the task of the reconstruction of the economy. But his real passion was impressing the audience with the urgency for America’s membership in the League of Nations to prevent future wars.

As reported in the Butler Eagle of Nov. 27, 1918, the speech noted Taft’s challenge to the audience: “I have had my dream of peace. I was once President of the United States. I did not have much peace but I had dreams of peace. How shall we have permanent peace? What shall we suggest that we make peace possible — nothing but a League of Nations!”

Thunderous applause again shook the 1,500-seat theater from the floor to the top of the upper balcony, Taft remained on stage to greet several hundred admirers that could one day tell their grandchildren of shaking the hand of a man that had been President of the United States.

The next morning the ever-cheerful Taft, accompanied by members of Butler’s Chamber of Commerce, was escorted from the Nixon Hotel to the B&O Train Station located underneath the West Wayne Street Viaduct. Waving goodbye from the wooden passenger train platform, the business leaders stood proudly knowing they had played a small part in a significant milestone in not only the history of Butler, but also American and World History: the creation of The League of Nations and a new way to seek humanity’s eternal desire for world peace.

As the train steamed away from the depot that chilly November day in 1918, disappearing under large puffs of white smoke, it carried a great man to his next tour stop in Greenville. Taft never returned to Butler.

The former president’s service to America was not finished. Taft was appointed chief justice of the United States Supreme Court by President Warren G. Harding in 1921. Upon being sworn in, Taft became the only person to date to serve as both as a U.S. President and a U.S. Supreme Court Justice.

Considering his time on the bench and not the presidency the highlight of his career, he presided over the nation’s highest court until shortly before his death in 1930. Upon his passing on March 8, he also became the first president to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

William Howard Taft’s dream of a League of Nations to prevent future wars came true. The organization was founded on Jan. 10, 1920, as part of the Paris Peace Conference that officially ended the First World War.

But even with the noblest of goals, it could not prevent an even greater catastrophe: World War II. The League of Nations was dissolved in 1946, its spirit was reincarnated after World War II into a new body and lives on as the United Nations.

Bill May of Butler is a historian, speaker and tour guide.