Herbert Clark Hoover spent the first eleven years of his life in West Branch, Iowa, a small farming community with a population around 500. His birthplace cottage was built in the spring of 1871 at the corner of Penn and Downey Streets. The two-room cottage, built for recent settlers Jesse Clark Hoover and his wife Hulda, was only and had two rooms. Jesse and Hulda were both Quakers. Jesse was a blacksmith, and opened a shop shortly after settling. The cottage was built on a stone foundation and built with board and batten timber. The timber was cut in a sawmill in Muscatine.