He left at nine and came back as a president

**Orphaned at age nine, Herbert Hoover left West Branch never to live here
again.**

That is the whole tension of this site in one sentence. It is a birthplace
whose subject spent almost none of his life in it — and he came back anyway.
In later years he returned to his humble birthplace to celebrate his long
career of public service.

What remains is a memorial landscape telling how **community, hard work,
honesty, and usefulness to others** opened a world of opportunity — and the
presidency of the United States — to a child of simple beginnings.

The four qualities in that list are the ones Hoover himself credited, which
makes the site an argument about what made the career possible as much as a
record that it happened.

Getting there

Take exit 254 off Interstate 80 to West Branch, Iowa. The visitor
centre is 0.3 mile north of I-80.

The weather

Rain and thunderstorms are most frequent in spring and summer.

Location: National Historic Site, Iowa. Source: U.S. National Park Service.