The Iowa State Historical Society (ISHS) Historic Resource Development Program has awarded $11,305 for preservation and restoration of the Mount Vernon Visitors Center. This grant was obtained by the Mount Vernon Historic Preservation Commission (MVHPC) in cooperation with the Mount Vernon/Lisbon Community Charitable Development Group and the City of Mount Vernon. The City will contribute $10,000 toward the project and the MVHPC will contribute materials and in-kind work worth $1600.
Technical Specialty Systems of Cedar Rapids has been engaged to work on the Visitors Center. The work will include repair of a broken stone window sill, removal and replacement of deteriorating mortar, replacement of decorative tuckpointing on the whole building, and cleaning of the masonry walls. Masonry work will commence in the Spring of 2024. The MVHPC will also purchase suitable shrubs and plant them to provide a thick hedge for more safety at the dropoff point of the retaining wall at the back of the Visitors Center.
The Mount Vernon Visitors Center was originally constructed to serve as the medical offices of brothers Thomas L. and John D. Wolfe. The Wolfe brothers were physicians, local entrepreneurs, and well-respected community leaders. They began practicing medicine in uptown Mount Vernon in the 1890s in one of three buildings they constructed in what is now called the Wolfe Block. In 1912 T.L and J.D. built as their clinic the free-standing building that now serves as Mount Vernon’s Visitors Center. After the Drs. Wolfe retired, the building was used as a law office by Thomas’s son Richard B.Wolfe for nearly 50 years.
The Wolfe clinic was originally on the site now occupied by Mount Vernon Bank and Trust. In 1990, the building was donated to the City of Mount Vernon by the Wolfe family and moved to its current location of Davis Park in the Cornell College Historic District.
Because the move took place after the Cornell College Historic District was formed, the Visitors Center was not previously on the National Register of Historic Places. This was corrected in 2022 when the MVHPC commissioned an amendment to the Cornell College Historic District. The Visitors Center is now a Contributing structure to the district, which made it eligible for the ISHS grant and also eligible for preservation grants administered by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
This latest project is part of a years-long collaboration that started in 2018 between the City of Mount Vernon and the MVHPC to benefit the Mount Vernon Visitors Center. A Preservation Plan was completed in 2020, and the front window was restored to its original appearance in 2021. Previous grant partners have included the Linn County Historic Preservation Commission and the Hart Family Fund for Small Towns of the National Trust for Historic Preservation (through a planning grant).