Hoover Historic Site / Hoover’s West Branch

Hoover Historic Site, also, Hoover’s West Branch. . The Herbert Hoover National Historic Site, located in nearby West Branch, honors a distinguished son of Iowa, citizen of the world, and the 31st president of the United States. Established in 1965, the Site’s foundations were laid earlier when in 1937 family and friends began restoration of the two-room cottage where Mr. Hoover was born in 1874. The Hoover Presidential Library and Museum, constructed by the Herbert Hoover Birthplace Foundation entirely with private funds, was dedicated in 1962. Two years late the Library. Containing Mr. Hoover’s personal papers and memorabilia, and its grounds were donated by the Foundation to the American people. In 1964, Mr. and Mrs. Hoover were buried at the presidential gravesite on a gentle knoll overlooking his birthplace cottage. The restored homes of West Branch circa 1880 and the Friends Meetinghouse where he worshiped as a boy, and a replica of the family blacksmith shop also recall the small Midwestern village which gave Herbert Hoover to the nation and the world. Administered by the National Park Service, the Herbert Hoover Historic Site is open daily to the public. , “The most formative years of boyhood were spent here. My roots are in this soil.” The speaker of those words were Herbert Clark Hoover, orphan at 9, president of the United States at 54. The community so remembered is nearby West Branch, the village of his birth. The life he described as “filled with adventure and great undertakings, with good and comforting things” left an indelible mark upon the man whose life of public service earned him distinction the world over. Settled by the Society of Friends, or Quakers, in 1850, West Branch was founded in religious faith, in tolerance and in devotion to individual liberty. The soul’s welfare and mind’s development were its guiding principles. Hospitality was the first law of the family. Honest labor was no stranger. From West Branch, Herbert Hoover took with him the sense of fairness, belief in equal opportunity, faith in humanity, and personal integrity that were the hallmarks of his life. He once declared: “Within the soul of America is the freedom of mind and spirit”. Clearly, within the soul of Herbert Hoover lived the character of a small village called West Branch.