Lacey-Keosauqua State Park is located southwest of
Keosauqua, Iowa
Keosauqua ( ) is a city in Van Buren County, Iowa, United States. The population was 936 at the time of the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Van Buren County.
History
Keosauqua was laid out in 1839. The word Keosauqua derives from the Me ...
, United States. The park is located along the
Des Moines River
The Des Moines River () is a tributary of the Mississippi River in the upper Midwestern United States that is approximately long from its farther headwaters.U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe Na ...
in
Van Buren County. First dedicated in 1921, it is the largest state park in size in
Iowa
Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to the ...
. In 1990, three areas were named nationally recognized
historic districts
A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal protection from cer ...
and listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
.
History
A group of local citizens contributed $64,000 to buy the land, which had been a large farm.
[ with ] The state acquired the land in 1920, and dedicated it as Big Bend Park the following year. In 1923 the park had , it grew to by 1935, and in 1942. The park currently has , making it the largest state park in Iowa.
[ It was renamed in 1926 in honor of John Fletcher Lacey, an ]American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
veteran who went on to serve in both the Iowa House of Representatives
The Iowa House of Representatives is the lower house of the Iowa General Assembly, the upper house being the Iowa Senate. There are 100 seats in the Iowa House of Representatives, representing 100 single-member districts across the state, formed ...
and the United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the Lower house, lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the United States Senate, Senate being ...
, representing Iowa's 6th congressional district
Iowa's 6th congressional district is a former U.S. congressional district in the State of Iowa. It existed in elections from 1862 to 1992, when it was lost due to Iowa's population growth rate being lower than that of the country as a whole.
T ...
. He was noted for conservation legislation while in Congress and was instrumental in establishing the state park system in Iowa. By 1933 a lodge and a golf course, no longer extant, had been developed in the northwest part of the park.
Several government agencies worked at Lacey-Keosauqua to develop the park in the 1930s and the 1940s. The Civilian Conservation Corps
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. The CCC was a major part of ...
(CCC) Company 770 arrived in the park on May 28, 1933. They worked with the National Forest Service
The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands. The Forest Service manages of land. Major divisions of the agency in ...
landscaping and with soil erosion control along the steep river bluffs until October 11 of the same year, when it was transferred to the National Park Service
The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propertie ...
. They continued their work in the park until October 23, 1934. Company 770's primary responsibility was the construction of the earthen dam
An embankment dam is a large artificial dam. It is typically created by the placement and compaction of a complex semi-plastic mound of various compositions of soil or rock. It has a semi-pervious waterproof natural covering for its surface and ...
and concrete spillway
A spillway is a structure used to provide the controlled release of water downstream from a dam or levee, typically into the riverbed of the dammed river itself. In the United Kingdom, they may be known as overflow channels. Spillways ensure tha ...
to create the man-made lake. CCC Company 2719 began work on August 20, 1934, and stayed until October 1935. Most of the trails were completed in 1934. The National Forest Service and both companies of the CCC built the various buildings. The Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...
(WPA) worked in the park building the foot and vehicle bridges and other small projects from December 1935 to April 1936. A National Park Service Camp began working in the park in June 1936 and remained until April 1937 or possibly into early 1938.[ The state of Iowa built two of the six existing cabins between 1940 and 1942 and completed the others sometime after 1942.
On November 15, 1990 three areas of the park were listed as historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places.] At the time of its nomination it contained 37 contributing properties
In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic distric ...
.[ Area A contains an entryway, a lodge and picnic area, Area B includes another picnic area and custodial facilities, and Area C contains the bathhouse and other features along the lake. All of the historic structures in the park were designed in the ]rustic
Rustic may refer to:
*Rural area
*Pastoral
Architecture
* Rustication (architecture), a masonry technique mainly employed in Renaissance architecture
* Rustic architecture, an informal architectural style in the United States and Canada with sever ...
style by the Central Design Office in Ames
Ames may refer to:
Places United States
* Ames, Arkansas, a place in Arkansas
* Ames, Colorado
* Ames, Illinois
* Ames, Indiana
* Ames, Iowa, the most populous city bearing this name
* Ames, Kansas
* Ames, Nebraska
* Ames, New York
* Ames, Oklah ...
. The park was part of a larger study of Iowa's state parks called the .
Lodge and Picnic Area (Area A)
Area A is located in the northwest corner of the park. Its historic buildings and structures include the gatehouse and portals, a regulatory sign, lodge, pump house, and picnic shelter. Two rubble limestone portals flank the entrance road. The south portal is nearly square and is tall.[ The north portal is T-shaped and stands tall. The sign stands in front of the north portal. The rectangular, random ]rubble
Rubble is broken stone, of irregular size, shape and texture; undressed especially as a filling-in. Rubble naturally found in the soil is known also as 'brash' (compare cornbrash)."Rubble" def. 2., "Brash n. 2. def. 1. ''Oxford English Dictionary ...
limestone
Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...
gatehouse is separate from the portals and is located to the south of them. The lodge is a two-story, L-shaped building that is located on the main road just beyond the portals.
The main section of the structure is covered with weatherboard
Clapboard (), also called bevel siding, lap siding, and weatherboard, with regional variation in the definition of these terms, is wooden siding of a building in the form of horizontal boards, often overlapping.
''Clapboard'' in modern Americ ...
, and an addition is covered with uncoursed rubble. A wrap-around porch composed of stone walls covers the east side of the building and parts of the adjoining north and south facades. The underground pump house lies to the east of the lodge and is marked by its double-wooden doors. The picnic shelter is one-quarter of a mile to the southeast of the pump house. The shelter is composed of uncoursed ashlar
Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...
limestone, and it is built into the side of a hill. Restrooms are located in the enclosed rear portion of the structure, and the north side is open.
Picnic and Custodial Group (Area B)
Area B is located in the north central part of the park. Its historic buildings and structures include the custodian's residence, a picnic shelter, a water fountain, two latrines, and several retaining walls at the entrance of the picnic shelter. Located in a clearing off the park road, the custodian's residence is a single-story, rectangular structure composed of rough-faced, coursed ashlar limestone. The gable
A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...
ends are closed with weatherboard. It is built over a limestone basement.
The picnic area is located to the northeast of the custodian's residence. Coursed ashlar limestone encloses the rear of the shelter, and includes a fireplace. Two latrines, of coursed rubble limestone and similar in construction, flank the shelter. The water fountain is located southwest of the shelter. The entrance to the picnic area is marked by four square cement posts that are flanked by two coursed ashlar stone walls. Two long stone walls are located in the center of the grass parking lot.[ with ]
Bathing Area (Area C)
Area C is located to the south of Area B near the center of the park. It is the bathing area and it includes the lake, dam, spillway, trail surrounding the lake, the check dam
A steel check dam
A check dam is a small, sometimes temporary, dam constructed across a swale, drainage ditch, or waterway to counteract erosion by reducing water flow velocity. Check dams themselves are not a type of new technology; rather, the ...
s and footbridge along this trail, bathhouse, beach, and pump house. Two bridges in this historic district are considered non-contributing to the historical nature of the district. The lake is fed by a spring that is damned at the north end of the lake. The earthen dam with a concrete core is in length.[ with ] Rock riprap
Riprap (in North American English), also known as rip rap, rip-rap, shot rock, rock armour (in British English) or rubble, is human-placed rock or other material used to protect shoreline structures against scour and water, wave, or ice erosion. ...
ping protects its south side from erosion. A
concrete spillway curves to the west. A arched, steel bridge (non-contributing) spans across the spillway. Most of the lake is surrounded by a trail. Ten check dams that prevent soil erosion into the lake are located along the trail. They are composed of random rubble and concrete walls. Two coursed rubble limestone footbridges are located south of the lake. One of the two bridges is a WPA structure, and is non-contributing. The bathhouse is located near the top of a hill on the west side of the lake. The single-story uncoursed ashlar limestone building was built on concrete footings. It features a central gable with a cupola
In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome.
The word derives, via Italian, from ...
and two flanking wings. Concrete steps with random rubble side walls lead down to the beach on the lake. An uncoursed ashlar limestone pump house is built into the hillside. It has a flat roof that is also composed of limestone.
Land use
Nineteen burial mounds from the ancient Woodland Period
In the classification of :category:Archaeological cultures of North America, archaeological cultures of North America, the Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures spanned a period from roughly 1000 Common Era, BCE to European con ...
are located in the northwest corner of the park.[ Park visitors are granted access to them. The lake in the center of the park is used for swimming, boating, and fishing. Fishing is also permitted on the Des Moines River. The park also features trails along the lake, and along the river bluffs and valleys for hiking. There are cabins and campsites for campers. Facilities are also available for picnicking. Part of ]Shimek State Forest
Shimek State Forest is an Iowa state forest maintained by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. Its five units are strung along the Des Moines River a few miles above its confluence with the Upper Mississippi River in Lee County, Iowa, Lee an ...
is adjacent to the park.
References
{{authority control
Protected areas established in 1921
Civilian Conservation Corps in Iowa
Works Progress Administration in Iowa
Rustic architecture in Iowa
Protected areas of Van Buren County, Iowa
Historic districts in Van Buren County, Iowa
National Register of Historic Places in Van Buren County, Iowa
State parks of Iowa
Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa
Parks on the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa
Keosauqua, Iowa
Park buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa