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About Our Organization
The Hawarden Historical Society is continuing its mission to preserve and protect Hawarden's history. Our society sponsors and maintains historical sites like: Calliope Village, The Historical House, and the site where Sioux County was born. We are a volunteer organization the works entirely off of grant funding and fund raisers as well as mostly volunteer time.
HHS currently works to maintain Historic Calliope Village, a village replica of buildings and antique artifacts true to times gone by. Many buildings and historical donations are specific to Sioux County and the Hawarden area. HHS also manages the Historical House near downtown and is working to preserve our Historic Old City Hall; recently placed on the National Historic Registry and was designed by William Steele who studied with Frankly Lloyd Wright.
The ultimate goal of HHS is to preserve our history for generations to come and contribute to the quality of life by improving on the immentities that are an vital part of our community.
The Hawarden Historical Society would like to make Calliope Village accessable to visitors no matter when they visit. The concept of an interactive audio tour has been developed so each building will have a QR code on the outside of the building allowing visitors to scan the the code and hear about the history of the building and times.
Continued maintenance on buildings and landscaping projects are also in the works for next year as well as continuing to remodel the rest of the Calliope Store.
After re-opening the Historic Calliope Store for it’s second season in 2019, improvements to ground around the store are one of the projects being planned for the 2020 season. Leveling of the ground, seeding and landscaping are the next step to further preserving the area known as Calliope Store.
The Suckow House, a staple of the Historic Calliope Village is in need of a new roof in 2020 and repairs also need to be made to the ceiling inside the building.
Hawarden Historical Society continues to operate the Historical Calliope Village and work towards the preservation of the former Hawarden City Hall designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. To date the inside of the building has been cleaned up, tuck pointing has been done and the historic original looking windows have begun to be replaced. We are raising funds to continue renovating and operating our historic village and the former Hawarden City Hall.