diff --git a/webapp/src/edu/cornell/mannlib/vitro/webapp/ConfigurationProperties.java b/webapp/src/edu/cornell/mannlib/vitro/webapp/ConfigurationProperties.java
index 18628f4c6..68f127165 100644
--- a/webapp/src/edu/cornell/mannlib/vitro/webapp/ConfigurationProperties.java
+++ b/webapp/src/edu/cornell/mannlib/vitro/webapp/ConfigurationProperties.java
@@ -35,6 +35,9 @@ import org.apache.commons.logging.LogFactory;
  * to a value like <code>/usr/local/vitro/stuff/deploy.properties</code> for a
  * file, or like <code>deploy.properties</code> for a resource in the classpath.
  * 
+ * When the properties file is loaded, the values are trimmed to remove leading
+ * or trailing white space, since such white space is almost always an error.
+ * 
  * @author jeb228
  */
 public class ConfigurationProperties {
@@ -144,7 +147,10 @@ public class ConfigurationProperties {
 		Map<String, String> newMap = new HashMap<String, String>();
 		for (Enumeration<?> keys = props.keys(); keys.hasMoreElements();) {
 			String key = (String) keys.nextElement();
-			newMap.put(key, props.getProperty(key));
+			String value = props.getProperty(key);
+			// While we're copying, remove leading and trailing white space.
+			String trimmed = value.trim();
+			newMap.put(key, trimmed);
 		}
 
 		log.info("Configuration properties are: " + newMap);
diff --git a/webapp/test/edu/cornell/mannlib/vitro/webapp/ConfigurationPropertiesTest.java b/webapp/test/edu/cornell/mannlib/vitro/webapp/ConfigurationPropertiesTest.java
index b049fbc4d..0e0f93be8 100644
--- a/webapp/test/edu/cornell/mannlib/vitro/webapp/ConfigurationPropertiesTest.java
+++ b/webapp/test/edu/cornell/mannlib/vitro/webapp/ConfigurationPropertiesTest.java
@@ -47,7 +47,7 @@ public class ConfigurationPropertiesTest extends AbstractTestClass {
 	 * The mappings that we might find from the property files.
 	 */
 	private static final String[][] MAP_VALUES_DEFAULT = new String[][] { {
-			"whichfile", "test_config_default" } };
+			"whichfile", "test_config_default" }, {"trimmed", "whitespace_test"} };
 	private static final String[][] MAP_VALUES_CONFIGURED = new String[][] { {
 			"whichfile", "test_config" } };
 
diff --git a/webapp/test/edu/cornell/mannlib/vitro/webapp/test_config_default.properties b/webapp/test/edu/cornell/mannlib/vitro/webapp/test_config_default.properties
index 17b581024..c89a1868a 100644
--- a/webapp/test/edu/cornell/mannlib/vitro/webapp/test_config_default.properties
+++ b/webapp/test/edu/cornell/mannlib/vitro/webapp/test_config_default.properties
@@ -2,3 +2,6 @@
 # This is a data file for ConfigurationPropertiesTest.
 #
 whichfile = test_config_default
+
+# This ends with a blank, in order to test the removal of whitespace
+trimmed = whitespace_test\u0020