Acknowledging and Respecting the Land

November 2020

Acknowledging the connection of the history of this land to the present reminds us that in our role as occupiers of the space—we are caretakers with an obligation to current and future generations.

The land at 304 Iowa Avenue in Muscatine will become the location of the Stanley Center’s home in 2022. More than 300,000 years ago, a glacier created the terrain that forms this landscape. And during the millennia in between, a critical story exists of environmental change, Indigenous settlement and forced removal, stolen land, agriculture, philanthropy, and learning.

We respectfully acknowledge that the land forms part of the unceded core traditional territory of the Kickapoo, Sauk, Meskwaki, and Ogallala Sioux. Recognizing the connection of this history to the present reminds us that in our role as occupiers of the space, we are caretakers with an obligation to current and future generations.

This video offers a history of the land and reminds us of our responsibility to care for it. To learn more about how we are fulfilling that responsibility, see Living Building, Challenge Accepted.

 

Danny Cryer of Neumann Monson Architects and local Muscatine historian Dan Clark describe the history and ecology of Muscatine with particular focus on the land that will become the Stanley Center’s new home, 304 Iowa Avenue.