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SHSI Receives Iowa Transportation Enhancement Grant
The State Historical Society of Iowa received a $220,275 grant from the Iowa Transportation Commission aimed at providing easier access to archived documents.
SHSI will use the funds to provide online computer access to an estimated 15,000 history, architecture and archaeology reports contained in Iowa’s statewide inventory, including National Register of Historic Places property information, with scanned, searchable text in Portable Document Format (PDF). The project will take nearly two years to complete.
“Our constituents will find it much easier and more convenient to research a property when this new system is put in place,” said Lowell Soike, Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer.
The State Historical Society is able to receive transportation funds because many surveyors and planners use the documents where highway projects are proposed. Planners use the resulting information to design where the road projects should be located, and where the road project cannot avoid destroying a cultural resource, such as an archaeologically significant area.
“By enhancing planning and research capabilities, the State Historic Preservation Office and other historical agencies will have in place a more efficient process resulting in an increase quality of environmental planning,” Soike said.
The state receives about 12 million federal transportation dollars each year to award to enhancement projects. Other awards from this round went to:
• Colo: $131,163 to restore and furnish the interior of the Colo Motel buildings in 1950s style;
• Onawa: $400,000 to for the Keel Boat Interpretive Center at Lewis and Clark State Park;
• Sioux City: $606,856 for the Milwaukee Railroad Shops Historic District rehabilitation project; and
• Mitchell County: $201,800 for road improvements near a proposed ethanol plant in a rural area.
