Supervisors OK matching grant funds for Maasdam Barns

The Jefferson County Board of Supervisors was updated on restoration efforts under way at the Maasdam Barns site before approving matching funds for a grant Monday morning.

?For the next two years we?ve got a lot of work to do ? both on the house as a museum and welcome center with living quarters for a caretaker and on restoring more barns,? Maasdam Barns Preservation Committee Chairman Larry Nash reported.

The stallions? barn and mares? barn are mostly complete, with some work yet to be done inside, but little has been done to the milking barn, he said. During the next couple years, restoration efforts will be funded with nearly $300,000 from a Statewide Transportation Enhancement Grant and Historic Site Preservation Grant.

The supervisors approved $7,007 in matching funds for the Great Places grant the committee used to move the house at 107 W. Briggs Ave. to the site.

Between the Great Places grant and a grant from the State Historical Society of Iowa, the committee has already brought in and put to use $66,393 in grants and $15,820 in matching funds from the county.

?Every dollar you have invested has brought in the barns committee $4.20,? Nash said.

Additionally, he said the committee has put in at least $17,500 worth of in-kind labor on the restoration.

For the complete article, see the Tuesday, May 12, 2009, Fairfield Ledger.