Archeology in Herbert Hoover's Neighborhood 1989: Excavations at the L. Miles and E.S. Hayburst Houses, West Branch, Iowa

Jeffrey J. Richner

Archeology in Herbert Hoover's Neighborhood 1989: Excavations at the L. Miles and E.S. Hayburst Houses, West Branch, Iowa

Author(s): Jeffrey J. Richner

Year: 1997

Summary

This report documents archeological excavations conducted by the Midwest Archeological

Center, National Park Service, at two historic properties at Herbert Hoover National Historic Site

(HEHO), West Branch, Iowa. This fieldwork occurred in 1989 in support of a major structural

restoration program at the Laban Miles and E.S. Hayhurst Houses. These late nineteenth-century

structures formed part of a West Branch neighborhood that would have been familiar to Herbert

Hoover during his childhood years. Restoration actions were aimed at returning the structures

to an earlier appearance, while adaptively restoring the structures’ interiors for modern use. The

1989 archeological project was intended to collect data that might otherwise be lost during

components of the restoration program that included ground disturbance around the houses.

Those impacts were successfully mitigated through the 1989 archeological data collection

program.

This report documents the field and laboratory archeological methods utilized in the

project and describes the subsurface features and stratigraphic profiles discovered at the sites.

Large numbers of recovered artifacts in a range of functional categories spanning the late

nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are also tabulated and described. All artifacts and project

records from the 1989 fieldwork are currently housed at the Midwest Archeological Center

(MWAC), Lincoln, Nebraska under MWAC Accession 345, which is cross referenced as HEHO

Accession 81.

Cite this Record

Archeology in Herbert Hoover's Neighborhood 1989: Excavations at the L. Miles and E.S. Hayburst Houses, West Branch, Iowa. Jeffrey J. Richner. Midwest Archeological Center Technical Report ,No. 51. Lincoln, Nebraska: United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Midwest Archeological Center. 1997 ( tDAR id: 360931) ; doi:10.6067/XCV8JS9Q4P