American Gothic House Center explores new addition
Oct. 4—OTTUMWA — With the American Gothic House Center in Eldon continuing to attract visitors on a large scale, the time may have come to expand.
During Tuesday's Wapello County Board of Supervisors meeting, supervisor Jerry Parker said there will likely be plans in place to add on to the visitor center, mostly likely a meeting room to accommodate more people.
The Gothic House board will be meeting and asking the county to pay about $12,000 for plans to present to Destination Iowa for a grant.
"There's not enough room for them all to see the film at the same time, so they're looking at expansion," Parker said. "It's one of the wonders of the world down there, not just something that gets attention in Wapello County or Iowa. They come from all over the United States."
Gothic House administrator Cari Nicely said the board is meeting Wednesday, and a letter will be presented to the supervisors next week.
"Under Destination Iowa, there are a couple different categories, and this one falls under 'tourism attraction,'" Nicely said. "You have to be under a certain threshold to be eligible for the 100% funding."
Parker said the need to expand is important, and the meeting room would seat "about 100 people.".
"It's difficult to say that only a certain amount of people can go in there, and the others have to go to the house," Parker said. "But there's the potential to rent that space out.
"You get a busload there, where if they wanted to eat, the had to go downtown," he said. "We built that center 20 years ago, and that was a big improvement because it shows the exhibits. But now you hate to tell a busload that you can't handle all of them."
In other business:
—Engineers for the Wabash Railroad pedestrian bridge will be in Ottumwa Thursday to finish up measurements for the bridge, which "they want to have done by the October," supervisor Wayne Huit said.
—The supervisors approved a $14,000 contract with Environmental Management Services of Iowa Inc. to conduct asbestos sampling of caulk in the courthouse windows.
"They did a sampling of 15 windows and four had asbestos. So because 25% of them have it, we have to do all of them," Parker said. "If they find asbestos, we will have to hire this company to do the removal, but Christner Contracting Inc. (which has the window-replacement contract) will lower their price and will take out the ones that don't have asbestos."
— Chad Drury can be reached at cdrury@ottumwacourier.com, and on Twitter @ChadDrury
