At their monthly meeting Wednesday evening, the Wilson Brewer Park Foundation board quietly passed the one-year mark in their work to turn a long-neglected collection of six historic buildings into the county’s top historical attraction.

When the foundation was jointly created by the Hamilton County Supervisors and City Council of Webster City a year ago, it capped a demonstration of cooperation between the two bodies rare in recent times. In turning over responsibility for planning and future funding, as well as day-to-day operations of the park, the city and county each backed up the fine words with pledges of $50,000 a year for five years.

At the end of that term, in July 2029, the park must be self-sustaining. The county and city funding will be backstopped by a $1,000,000 donation from the Dean Bowden family, which has been carefully invested. The objective of that money is that only interest or capital gains will be spent; the principal will remain intact in perpetuity.

Kolleen Taylor presented a powerpoint presentation for review by the board. This is part of the presentation to be used with the grant presentation for the Hotel-Motel Grant. The presentation included a list of accomplishments at the park during the past 12 months. These include;

Managing the final steps in the restoration of the First Hamilton County Courthouse. When finished, this will be the single most expensive project yet undertaken at the park. The building will house both main and second floor galleries of Hamilton County history exhibits.

Completed overdue maintenance on the historic Illinois Central depot, the site of the museum’s main history collections. As part of the maintenance, gutters were cleaned out, broken and rotting boards were replaced. In addition, overgrown landscaping was cleaned-up, largely with volunteer labor by board members themselves and a few community members. Repainting of the wooden structure is now nearing completion.

Planned and constructed a new ADA-compliant entrance to Mulberry Center Church, which is the site of weddings and the popular summer historic lectures and programs held on various Saturdays. Work on this project will be completed in the next few weeks, weather permitting.

Started a marketing campaign in Our Iowa Magazine, a high-quality, photo-rich monthly publication read by over 90,000 subscribers interested in Iowa history and tourism.

During the meeting the volunteer reports included the announcement of the next program to be held at the Mulberry Church. Carolynn Miller, who voluntarily manages the church, was excited about the new concrete entrances, and is hopeful the north entrance will be completed for the next program. “Gangster in our Midst: The Untold Story”, will be presented by Betty Brandt Passick at 1 p.m. on Saturday, July 19.