An aging Iowa landmark got a special touch Friday when Gov. Kim Reynolds announced a $5 million grant for a redesign of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch.
The grant was the largest of the four, totaling $14. 1 million, as a component of Reynolds’ latest investment circular for Destination Iowa. In total, it has earmarked $100 million the state earned from the American Rescue Plan Act for grants to help “transformative projects” that improve Iowa’s quality of life and attractiveness as a business and tourism destination.
Previous winners have included the planned Field of Dreams stadium in Dyersville, Des Moines elements of the ICON water project and a redesign of the Val Air Ballroom in West Des Moines.
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Hoover’s grant will be used to raise $20. 3 million for the renovation of the library and museum. It stores land at the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site, controlled through the National Park Service, which includes Hoover’s birthplace, his and his wife’s graves, and other historic structures related to the 31st president and the city where he was born. But it is a separate establishment from the National Archives, receiving a large amount of funding from President Hoover’s Foundation, a private nonprofit organization.
The museum and library, which opened in 1962, were last renovated and expanded in 1992, director Thomas Schwartz wrote in a February editorial for the Des Moines Register. Schwartz said the generation installed then, like tube-style television screens, is obsolete and that the exhibits also want to be updated to reflect new wisdom about Hoover’s 1929-1933 tenure, marked by the onset of the Great Depression.
Schwartz did not respond to a message Friday requesting data on how much cash had been raised for the project.
Hoover was the only Iowa-born president, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, whose wife Mamie was from Boone, was an ordinary visitor. The Hoover Library is one of 15 presidential libraries in the National Archives system, adding one for President Barack Obama that is under structure in Chicago and some other for President Donald Trump that lately only exists online.
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Other Destination Iowa grants on Friday were:
The governor said the grant program will continue to conform to programs until Dec. 31 or when cash runs out.
Bill Steiden is the research editor of the registry. Contact him at wsteiden@registermedia. com.