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Editorial: Hoover Complex draws visitors, economic impact
Op-Ed · September 11, 2014


Looking across the neatly trimmed and pristine landscape that includes the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site and the Hoover Presidential Library-Museum, it may surprise you that it last year drew nearly 129,000 people spending more than $7.1 million in the area.


That amounts to about $176,000 more than the previous year’s total of $6.93 million.

The area includes restaurants, gas stations and shops in and within 60 miles of West Branch. The Hoover Complex is one of two national parks in Iowa that attracted some $11.4 million to the state, with 62 percent of that injected into the regional economy.

No doubt we residents of West Branch get used to hearing terms “presidential library” or “birthplace cottage” or “Hoover gravesite” or how the 31st president fed somewhere around a billion people through his humanitarian efforts. No doubt many of us tell visiting friends and family how Hoover purposely asked that his gravesite be within sight of his boyhood home, and how the National Park Service makes sure there are no trees or bushes or buildings or even parked cars blocking the view between the two landmarks. And no doubt many of us have walked the trails around the historic section and deep into the prairie time and time again, or perused the permanent exhibits repeatedly, or visited the vast array of temporary exhibits often paid for by the Hoover Presidential Foundation.

Yet thousands of visitors each and every year see and hear and experience those things for the very first time. And many of them, even older visitors who lived much closer to Hoover’s days as president, leave this city with a greater — and more appreciative — understanding of the West Branch native who gave up a successful mining career to enter public service.

From the 186 acres — reaching between Interstate 80, the downtown, Second Street and almost out to West Branch High School — to the smallest print on indoor displays, the Hoover campus has a lot to attract visitors. And visitors, in turn, bring their wallets and purses and time to see it. On average, they spend about $55.12 per person in the region when visiting.

We should continue to be grateful to the treasure in our city that is the Hoover Complex, not only for preserving Hoover’s legacy, but for how it continues to benefit the West Branch area.