Herbert Hoover's Uncle Allen owned a farm one mile north and a half-mile east of West Branch. After losing first his father, and three years later, his mother, Herbert Hoover went to live on his uncle's farm at the age of nine.
Amanda Garvin was a single 35-year old woman when she bought this property in 1870 for $90.00. She had this cottage built by 1872. The Garvin house is a wonderful example of the Gothic Revival style with its steeply pitched roof, gingerbread bargeboard trim, and ornamental arches framing the open front porch.
In the years following his presidency, Herbert and Lou Hoover restored the president's humble birthplace, which he called, "physical proof of the unbounded opportunity of American life." The small space and few material possessions reflect an ethic of thrift. The cottage was a typical starter home for a young late 19th century family. Antique furnishings represent common household items of a simply furnished two room rural home.
The partially enclosed and covered porch at the rear of the cottage may have served several purposes over time, including a woodshed, storeroom, summer kitchen, and spare bedroom.
Decorative patchwork quilts, along with wool bedspreads woven on family looms, kept everyone warm when the woodstove’s fire died out in the middle of the night.
With no electricity or indoor plumbing, rooms in the compact cottage needed to be multi-purpose. The main room served as a combined living room, dining room, and kitchen, while the bedroom had sufficient furnishings for the parents and their three small children. Furniture like a trundle bed in the bedroom and a drop-leaf table in the main room helped save space.
The Hoover Birthplace Society dedicated "Herbert Hoover Birthplace Park" at its new entrance gate in 1952. At the time the park consisted chiefly of the Birthplace Cottage and the Statue of Isis.
Jesse Hoover owned and operated a blacksmith shop from 1871 to 1878. Although there were other smithies in town, Jesse earned a reputation as a good-natured, fair, and industrious businessman. Skilled and ambitious, he advertised to farmers, “Horse shoeing and plow work a specialty. Also dealer in all kinds of pumps. Prices to suit the times.”
The Blacksmith Shop at Herbert Hoover National Historic Site is a working smithy in the style of traditional blacksmithing. The techniques, tools, and fuel sources are what blacksmiths used in the 1800s.
In 1871 young Jesse Hoover constructed a blacksmith and wagon repair shop here on the corner of Penn and Downey streets. His business thrived in the rapidly growing village. In 1878 Jesse sold both his shop and the small cottage he had built across Penn Street, and opened a farm implement business a few blocks away on Main Street. In 1888 the original building was moved to another part of town, and was subsequently lost to history.
Built and operated by Jesse Hoover, the Blacksmith Shop was sold by Jesse to G.M.D. Hill in 1878. It was moved from its original location in 1888 and converted into a veterinary barn. Whether it was later moved again or demolished, the shop originally owned by Jesse Hoover had faded into obscurity by 1895.
Charles E. Smith was a carpenter and a Civil War veteran. In 1903, he completed his dream home for himself and his wife, Deborah, atop Cooks Hill where each spring, he would tap his maple trees to make maple syrup. The National Park Service relocated it near Herbert Hoover's birthplace in 1969.
The C.E. Smith House was built in 1903 on Cook's Hill, south of where it stands today. It was moved onto its current site in 1969 to be incorporated into the historic Downey Trace scene.
In 1909 Citizens' Savings Bank relocated here on the northeast corner of North Downey and Main streets. Surviving the collapse of farm prices in 1921 but not the Great Depression, it was absorbed in 1934 by the West Branch State Bank, creating the First State Bank.
West Branch's first schoolhouse occupied a one-acre lot here from 1853 until 1870. Nate Crook owned and operated a barber shop and restaurant in this building in 1871. By 1877 he had expanded his operation to include a hotel and livery. Over the years the building has housed several hotels and restaurants.
In 1869, carpenter David Mackey, who designed and built this humble two-story home. The cheerful yellow house would have been a familiar landmark to the young Herbert Hoover. The young widower, one of the town's few Democrats, was elected the Mayor of West Branch in 1879.
West Branch boomed between 1869 and 1873. New buildings constructed in the neighborhood near the Hoovers' small cottage on Downey Street included the Laban Miles House, the Garvin House, and the Methodist Church, which is no longer standing. When the Burlington, Cedar Rapids & Northern Railroad arrived in West Branch on December 20, 1870, two hundred of the town's residents celebrated with a picnic dinner.
Herbert Hoover National Historic Site commemorates the life of the 31st President. An exhibit panel orients visitors to the layout of the historic site and its features. On the opposite side of the exhibit, a panel describes historic downtown West Branch as they exit the park.
In 1870, real-estate developer J.M. Wetherell sold three lots to E.S. Hayhurst. Hayhurst built his house here in 1872. Unfortunately, Hayhurst and his family were only able to call this place home for less than a decade.
Commercial growth prompted the establishment of a second downtown bank in 1898, the Citizens' Savings Bank. The principal shareholders used local material dealers and contractors for construction. The front featured a dazzling 8 by 11 foot plate glass window. Since 1909 this building has been occupied by small businesses.
Herbert Hoover's grandfather Eli Hoover came to Iowa in 1854 and bought a farm one mile from West Branch, which at that time was no more than a small settlement. He was said to have been mechanically inclined, with a talent for invention- traits that he passed along to his son Jesse- Herbert Hoover's father.<br /><br />The Eli Hoover home no longer stands on this private property.
In 1904 Huldah Enlow donated the land and building for a public library. Later, an anonymous monetary gift financed construction of an expansion. In 1963, the front entrance was enclosed and in 1974, the basement was converted into a children's library. It remained a library until 1993.
Herbert Hoover grew up in a religious community that valued peace, simplicity, integrity, and service to others. The plainly furnished Friends Meetinghouse, built by the Society of Friends, or Quakers, in 1857, is the physical expression of those values. Now two blocks from its original location, the Herbert Hoover Birthplace Foundation relocated and restored this meetinghouse in 1964.
Mothers brought restless or hungry infants to the cry room, or nursery, to avoid disturbing the silent Quaker meetings. This cry room is not original to the meetinghouse. It came from another meetinghouse, added as part of the restoration.
Males and females sat on each side of an open partition, to encourage individual worship and full participation for women. With the emphasis on individual worship, the meetinghouse had no pulpit or altar, no crucifixes or stained glass, nor an organ or a choir.
Following a split between members of the West Branch Quaker community, conservative Friends built their own meetinghouse on 2nd Street. The remaining progressive members remodeled the original meetinghouse, which had been built in 1857, in 1885. They removed the partitions to better suit the progressives' needs. The progressives used the meetinghouse until 1915 when they built the new Friends Church.
To make way for a new Friends Church, the original meetinghouse was moved to a new location nearby in 1915 and remodeled first into a movie theater, and later into an auto garage and gift shop. It was moved to its present location within the park in 1964 to help tell the story of Hoover's formative years in West Branch.
When he died on October 20, 1964 at the age of 90, the 31st President was laid to rest five days later in this quiet, grassy hillside. More than 100,000 people lined the funeral procession route from Cedar Rapids to West Branch on that warm fall day.
Behind the brick facade stands the wood frame building of Edwin Grinnell's drug store and H.T. Hollingsworth's watch repair. This building, the oldest surviving store, may date back to 1869. A series of jewelers and druggists occupied the building until 1924 when Fred Albin bought it for his meat market. He added the back room and brick facade.
Built by Mayor S.C. Gruwell and businessman J.C. Crew shortly after the land was deeded in 1894, this is one of the older storefronts remaining along West Main Street, having been built shortly after the land was deeded in 1894. C.M. Paulsen had a music store here until 1910 when a harness shop occupied the building. It became a variety store in 1960. In recent years it has been the home of the West Branch Heritage Museum.
Hannah Varney built this house in 1899 shortly after divorcing her husband. The West Branch Times described the house as being of "fine appearance and finished in modern style."
The Hannah Varney House was built in 1899, several years after Herbert Hoover left West Branch to live in Oregon. The National Park Service moved the Varney House a short distance from its original site on Downey Street in 1967. The home is meant to be representative of small town Iowa residences of the period and helps to recreate the past appearance of the neighborhood.
Herbert Hoover Highway is a 46-mile-long Iowa Registered Route. It follows local, state, and county roads, stretching from Iowa City to the Cedar County community of Lowden. It is marked, in places, by signs bearing a distinctive triple-H logo. A marker on Main Street in West Branch commemorates the Herbert Hoover Highway.
Welcome to Herbert Hoover National Historic Site, one of over 400 national parks in the United States. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the law establishing it on August 12, 1965, the year following Herbert Hoover's death. In his remarks, President Johnson said, "The visitors to this historic site will sense the essence of this land of opportunity. For out of those humble origins, this young man found his way to greatness in this land-and, yes, greatness in this world."
Part of the National Archives, the presidential library allows people to explore the legacy of Herbert Hoover's presidency. Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum opened to the public on August 10, 1962— Herbert Hoover's 88th birthday. The library's original entrance, which is the small portico at the east end of the building supported by four white pillars and topped with an earlier version of the presidential seal, is where the dedication took place.
Heritage Square is the name of the small plaza anchored by a gazebo near the intersection of Downey and Main Streets. The gazebo is modeled after an earlier bandstand that sheltered the town pump near that location between 1895 and 1912. The pump itself had been in existence since the early 1870's, and the bandstand became a popular site for concerts.
The South Downey Street Bridge extends across a tributary of the West Branch of the Wapsinonoc Creek. When Herbert Hoover was a boy, the creek was just a small stream of water trickling through marshy wetlands. Young Herbert and the neighborhood kids took their willow fishing poles about a quarter mile east to catch sunfish and catfish in the main creek.
The Hoover Nature Trail follows the railroad that passed through the president's hometown. As a child, Herbert Hoover developed an early interest in geology while collecting interesting rocks along the railroad grade.
In 1938 Lou Henry Hoover suggested establishing an organization to own and manage the birthplace. The Herbert Hoover Birthplace Society was organized the following year.
A lone maple tree grows on the land where the Hoover family's second home once stood. The one-acre parcel, on the corner of Downey and Cedar streets, had a two-story frame house with two chimneys. Maple trees lined the front yard and a wild crabapple tree grew in back of the spacious four-room home.
In 1951 Herbert Hoover became the first recipient of the prestigious Iowa Award, which is bestowed to "recognize the outstanding service of Iowans in the fields of science, medicine, law, religion, social welfare education, agriculture, industry, government and other public service." Only 12 other Iowans have received this award.
Isaac Miles was a widower with two young daughters when he moved to West Branch in 1874 and opened a drugstore. Isaac's daughters, Providence and Abbie were around the same age as the Hoover children, and it's likely they played together in this rural playground filled with natural wonders.
The main wing of this white, two-story wood frame structure was completed in 1872, two years before Herbert Hoover was born. Dr. James Staples and his wife Eliza bought it in 1876. The couple, originally from Vermont, had decided to retire in West Branch.
Jesse Hoover was moving ahead with the changing times when he sold his blacksmith shop and went into the farm implement business. His farm implement shop was located on the corner of 1st Street and Main Street, near the center of town.
For thirty-six years Dr. L.J. Leech, a Civil War veteran and graduate of Iowa State University, had lived in the Laban Miles House next door; renting it at first in 1884, and then buying it two years later when the bank foreclosed on the home. By 1920, the well-liked country doctor and Iowa legislator decided to have a new home built for himself.
In 1870, Laban Miles had married Hulda Hoover’s younger sister, Agnes Minthorn, just five days after Hulda and Jesse Hoover were wed. By 1875 they were settling down in this house, built sometime between 1869 and 1872, with a family of their own.
Charles F. Schroeder had this building constructed in 1912 for his men's clothing store. The modern store boasted large display windows and electric lights. Since that time, several shops have used the building and made alterations to its interior.
