Waterloo is being designated as Iowa’s only World War Two Heritage City.
The designation from the National Park Service came through the collaboration of the city’s museums, economic development corporations, and former mayor Tim Hurley.
The nomination process took nearly three years. Hurley says the people of his hometown made Waterloo’s contribution to the war effort special.
“By 1940, there were 55,000 people in town,” he says, “and 8,000 or 8,500 of our citizens in Waterloo enlisted, went to war or were drafted.”
Hurley says part of what separated Waterloo’s story from other cities in Iowa was the doors that its manufacturing sector helped to open.
“It turned the workforce over. It reopened that pipeline from the Mississippi delta back up to Waterloo for African Americans,” he says, “and many of those families still live here, and their grandchildren and great-grandchildren are doing great things here.”
Waterloo is among 11 sites across the country granted the distinction. Only one community per state can be designated as a heritage city.
(By Grant Winterer, Iowa Public Radio)