During a recent Tuesday meeting of the Perry Kiwanis Club, Pete Malmberg, cultural resources curator for the Dallas County Conservation Board, stopped by the Hotel Pattee to discuss the history of Forest Park Museum near Perry.
The grounds of Forest Park Museum, including the buildings, arboretum and grass lands, were set up by local historian Eugene Hastie. Forest Park Museum was not originally part of Dallas County Conservation.
Hastie had a vision in 1910 to establish a museum of Dallas County history. Malmberg said Hastie’s family thought that he was crazy when he started developing the prairie and arboretum in the 1940s.
In the 1950s he started raising the first buildings by himself. He collected local artifacts from the past that represented how people lived here in the earliest days of white settlement. At area auctions he had the first choice of items.
Hastie also arranged for buildings important to the area to be moved to the site. One is Alton School. He also let groups camp out on his land and interacting with the natural environment of prairie and trees.
Forest Park Museum became property of the Dallas County Conservation Board in the 1970s.
The Conservation Board has several other properties and buildings around Dallas County, including the Voas and Keuhn Conservation Areas, the Grand Army of the Republic Building in Redfield and the Redfield and Dawson Depots.
Malmberg said some of these buildings are now in poor shape. He said the GAR building was built by some men over a weekend, and it is amazing that it has lasted so long. Some of the other buildings were in very poor shape when recent restoration work began on them. He said the Dawson Depot had a wall falling in.
There are also houses and cottages that can be rented by the night or longer.
Malmberg discussed the many activities that Dallas County Conservation hosts, such as the annual Prairie Awakening.
A number of permanent historical exhibits are on display at Forest Park. Visitors can also examine fossils and exhibits related to native plants, minerals and wildlife. They also rotate other exhibits, with one on Iowa Cold Cases soon to end an another on skulls to begin.
Malmerg said the museum dis not have enough exhibit space for all of the historical artifacts in storage, so they pulled out the important items and sold the rest. Some were damaged by humidity. The museum do not accept historical items donated unless it is something very unusual or important to Dallas County.
Items of interest include things related to Iowa artists, and the museum hopes to have a display on this, Malmberg said. He said a lot of very important but now forgotten Iowa artists deserve to be remembered.
They are also looking for items on Dallas County businesses.
They are working on adding audio information tours for guests who visit the historical buildings on the Forest Park site. Work on the recording of information on Alton School has been completed, and later this year sound equipment will be installed so visitors can both see and hear the history of the school.
Throughout the year, Forest Park Museum offers many programs for free or at very low cost. Malmberg said a program on fruit tree grafting is planned, which was very popular in past years. Another popular event was a car cruise to area history spots.
They will probably offer seminars on the paranormal and UFOs. These have also been very popular in the past. Malmberg said he gets criticized for paranormal and UFO seminars, but he points out to critics that the paranormal was very popular during Victorian times. Even UFO claims go back to the Native peoples in this area.
Welcoming Pete Malmberg was 40-year Perry Kiwanian and Treasurer Mark Lincoln.
