INDEPENDENCE, MO. ? Construction has started on a $1.6 million project designed to bring the public closer to the office Harry S. Truman worked in after leaving the White House.

Since 1974, visitors to the Truman Presidential Museum and Library in Independence have been offered a glimpse of the 25-by-21-foot office by peering through a window in a museum courtyard.

But museum officials broke ground Friday on the Truman Working Office project. When finished in late 2009, the 33rd president’s working office will be enclosed in a new gallery featuring interactive software.

Clifton Truman Daniel, the former president’s grandson, was on hand for the ceremony, along with Bruce Cole, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The endowment’s Save America’s Treasures program has given the museum a $125,000 grant to help preserve some of the office’s artifacts.

The project is also designed to give visitors a greater understanding of what Truman did in the office between 1957, when the library was dedicated, to the mid-1960s, when his health began to decline.

Truman used the office to meet with Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, as well as entertainment icons, such as Jack Benny and Ginger Rogers. He also answered mail, greeted school children and wrote articles.

“The working office is the one place in the library where you can still kind of feel Harry Truman’s presence,” said Clay Bauske, the museum’s curator.

The office includes 1,200 books, including an 1894 edition of “Great Men and Famous Women,” a set of biographies that Truman’s parents gave him when he was 10.