An eastern Iowa state park could become the first in Iowa to be designated in its entirety as a National Historic District.
Wapsipinicon State Park on the south edge of Anamosa was built in the 1920s with labor from the Anamosa State Reformatory, a state-run prison.
The State Historical Society of Iowa recently awarded a $7,000 grant to the Jones County Historic Preservation Commission to help research and prepare the historic district application to the National Park Service.
A national designation could help the Iowa Department of Natural Resources fund preservation of sites in the 400-acre park which features limestone bluffs, caves, and archaeological sites thousands of years old.
A National Register of Historic Places nomination is expected to be submitted in 2014.
