Nearby West Branch is the birthplace of Herbert Hoover, a distinguished son of Iowa, citizen of the world, and the 31st president of the United States. Restoration of the two-room cottage where he was born in 1874 began in 1937 through the efforts of family and friends, and the Hoover Presidential Library and Museum, built entirely with private funds by the Herbert Hoover Birthplace Foundation, was dedicated in 1962. In 1964, Herbert and Lou Henry Hoover were buried at the presidential gravesite on a gentle knoll overlooking his birthplace cottage. Restored homes of West Branch circa 1880, the Friends Meetinghouse where he worshiped as a boy, and a replica of the family blacksmith shop recall the small Midwestern village that shaped him. Settled by the Society of Friends, or Quakers, in 1850, West Branch was founded in religious faith, tolerance, and devotion to individual liberty, with concern for the soul’s welfare and the mind’s development. From West Branch, Hoover carried a sense of fairness, belief in equal opportunity, faith in humanity, and personal integrity that marked his life of public service.