Born in a modest two-room cottage, Herbert Hoover spent most of his first 11 years in West Branch and went on to become President of the United States, the first born west of the Mississippi River. There his parents and neighbors instilled in him the Quaker principles of honesty and hard work that formed his strong beliefs in self-reliance and American individualism. The preserved historic landscape reflects the setting underlying Hoover’s achievements as a mining engineer, humanitarian, and statesman. Few American presidents had such humble beginnings and were so authentically called self-made as Herbert Hoover.