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

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.