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Hoover Park turns 50
by Gregory R. Norfleet · News · August 27, 2015


In Washington D.C., Herbert Hoover’s son Allan Hoover sat down across from the U.S. Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs in the spring of 1965, asking the committee to create a National Historic Site in honor and memory of the 31st president.


The federal government already placed the General Services Administration in charge of the 29-acre site culled together by the Birthplace Foundation with help from the Hoover family, but the GSA could only do so much — it did not have the resources nor the expertise of the National Park Service.

Some 300,000 visitors attended the park in 1964, most visiting during or after the burial of the man known as “The Great Humanitarian.” The family was glad to see this, Hoover said, and the GSA “is doing a magnificent job” organizing the Hoover Library-Museum, caring for the grounds, directing visitors and maintaining security.

“However, we have been given to understand … that (the GSA) is not in a position to provide further protection to certain of our borders by obtaining and maintaining additional property that is urgently needed, nor is it the function of GSA to participate in the solution of problems that suddenly have been thrust upon the town of West Branch,” Hoover said. “We have been warned by both GSA and the National Park Service that under present conditions it could disappear almost over night, and this would be a tragedy.”

Congress agreed, and on Aug. 12, 1965, approved the creation of a national park and appropriating $1.65 million to buy land and develop it “to preserve in public ownership historically significant properties associated with the life of Herbert Hoover.”

Fifty years later, the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site marked — albeit in what Site Superintendent Pete Swisher said were subtle ways — its milestone anniversary. Volunteer Norm Bickford built a scale model of the birthplace cottage for the Hoover’s Hometown Days Mayor’s Parade, staff created a commemorative pin to hand out at the festival as well as Christmas Past and hosted presentations to reflect on the development of the park as well as fielding ideas on how to make the park better and more attractive to the next generation.

“The idea is not to appear like we’re boasting,” Swisher said, “but to stimulate conversation. How would this town have developed without the Hoover Park? What would West Branch look like?”

There are 407 national parks in America, he added, and he does not want the community to take this one for granted.

Some don’t, he said while addressing the Celebration of Life ceremony during Hoover’s Hometown Days. After summarizing the work the community and the Birthplace Society put into having a stretch of road named Herbert Hoover Highway and buying, moving and constructing buildings, many residents have told him how much things have changed.

“I enjoy talking to people about how they watched the development of the park,” he told the crowd. “It’s all part of our heritage.”

Somewhere around 1967, the Herbert Hoover Birthplace Foundation, Inc., wrote an 11-page letter to the federal government explaining their vision for preserving the site. The land transfer from the GSA to the National Park Service did not happen officially until June 7, 1971, but the park service was developing a master plan for the site.

The letter does not go deep into detail, but makes clear that, like Allan Hoover testified, not only does the historic section of the park need to be preserved, but that it needs a buffer of land around it so that the modern world does not encroach and devalue the site.

The Society wanted, for example, old trees replaced with the same kinds, they wanted “no more medals, plaques or monuments” added to the gravesite area — the “Overlook” — they wanted the view unobstructed from the birthplace to the gravesite and they wanted the Wapsinonoc Creek to maintain its natural look.

“If the grass is long and the banks caved in, leave it that way,” read the letter. “It will be more as Mr. Hoover knew it as a boy.”

In most ways, the National Park Service accommodated, in some details, they had to disagree. The most notable: the Society wanted the Loop Road removed, but Hoover Park leaders said visitors liked it a lot, so it stayed.

In another example, the Society wanted to make sure visitors could always “walk through” the birthplace cottage, though they did understand there could be reasons to install barriers to protect items inside. While the park keeps the cottage open, both small and large parts of the inside have been placed behind Plexiglas, though that has been seasonal.

“I try to honor it,” Swisher said.

Times do change, he noted. When Hoover was first buried, the gravesite had a guard shack manned 24 hours a day. That has since been removed.

“We stand for preservation but the environment around us is always changing,” he said.

The relationship between the park and the city is another matter. While many in the community supported the new park, there were some who objected. Expanding the park from 29 to 186 acres meant some families had to move, and all that property came off the tax rolls.

“It’s not uncommon to hear that,” Swisher said of his five years as superintendent. Yet he, like his predecessor, tries to make the park more open and accessible. “The Park Service values our gateway communities. West Branch would obviously be ours.”

As far as the loss of property taxes, Swisher notes that the park draws tourists, who eat at restaurants, buy gasoline and shop. The most recent economic impact study by the NPS shows visitors spending $7.8 million here or within 60 miles of the park.

The park also hosts events, most at no charge, from nature walks to speakers to movies and even, in the last two years, snowshoe walks through the prairie.

“I think people are learning our mission” — to preserve and open for use without detrimental impact — he said. “People will always be critical of some things, but they support us more than they don’t.”

Swisher hosted two meetings earlier this year to gather ideas for the next 50 years. Park staff are still putting those ideas into a plan, but one thing Swisher wants to do is get every fourth-grader in West Branch and the surrounding schools to visit.

He hopes to grab their interest enough that they will want to ask their parents to bring the family for a visit. He wants people of all ages to consider the questions Hoover faced and overcame: How did he feed everybody? How did he cure illnesses?

“What Hoover did was timeless,” he said.

And just like volunteers who plant trees, paint, fix fences, etc., he hopes visitors find a reason to find ownership in a park that represents a man who started in West Branch but impacted the world so much that people still talk about him today.

“When you connect somebody to the park, and they say, ‘This is my park,’ then (they) own it,” Swisher said. “We just work here.”

He said there is so much going on the Internet that people can take a “virtual vacation,” but he said even touch screens cannot compete with the real thing.

“Parks are meant to be touched,” he said. “You need to sit under a tree and experience the natural sound.”