Living a year in Iowa City, we’ve had a chance to visit a few attractions nearby. In January, we took time to visit Herbert Hoover National Historic Site and Herbert Hoover Presidential Library.
Herbert Hoover National Historic Site includes the birthplace of former president Herbert Hoover, along with his father’s blacksmith shop, an old schoolhouse, and an old meeting house. His birthplace is a small two room cottage. You can walk into all four buildings mentioned and see how they would have been set up back then.
Next we made our way over to the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library. This library is much smaller than some of the other presidential libraries I’ve visited, but I still would need multiple visits to read all the information in the museum. Hoover was president when the stock market crashed and the Great Depression began. He gets a bad reputation because of that, but seeing all the work he did for war efforts and the U.S. in other positions he held, I think it’s unfair that we gets a bad rep.
The final site we saw that day was the grave site of Herbert Hoover and his wife. It’s pretty amazing to think that a past president is buried in the little state of Iowa. Most people drive right by the exit for West Branch without realizing all this history can be found.
Sites & Bites 