Cherie Haury-Artz
Old paths lead to the Mulberry Center Church in Wilson Brewer Park in Webster City on Saturday with August presenter Cherie Haury-Artz.
This free event begins at 1 p.m. in the church on the grounds of the historic park at the corner of Superior and Ohio Streets.
In Iowa, 6,830 miles of trails were mapped by the General Land Office between 1833 and 1861. This was before the U.S. government sold the land to the newcomers, who were mostly European-American settlers, according to a research project funded by the Transportation Alternatives Program of the Iowa Department of Transportation’s Office of Systems Planning.
These studies found that there are 437 hiking trails with a total length of 2,567 kilometers in the northern 42 counties of the state.
Only about 15% of them remain today, according to analysis of aerial photographs, old maps and high-resolution lidar topography maps. Many of the old trails that remain are private dirt roads. Some run along public roads.
Haury-Artz is very interested in the stories these paths can tell.
She received her BA in Anthropology from SUNY Potsdam and her MA in Anthropology from the University of Kansas. She worked in North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas, and Oklahoma before moving to Iowa, and her area of focus is the Great Plains.
Her research interests include faunal analysis of archaeological sites, stone resource use and identification, rock art, and environmental adaptation of ancient cultures. She has a special interest in public education and outreach and is certified as a teacher and facilitator in project archaeology.
In addition, she has over 20 years of experience teaching courses and writing interpretive content for all ages and audiences. Haury-Artz serves on the Ethics and Inclusion Committee of the Plains Anthropological Society (PAS) and the Board of Directors of the Iowa Archeological Society, and served on the PAS Board for three years.
As an Education Assistant at OSA, she contributes to educational initiatives such as developing and presenting K-12 and public programs (in person and digital), consulting on archaeological exhibitions, and creating hands-on teaching materials.
She also does field work and carries out fauna analyses for research projects.
The course of ancient hiking trails was typically the path of least resistance, that is, they followed natural routes and respected the existing topography.
This free talk takes the audience on a historical journey into a historic church that pays respect to the paths that came before and the stories that followed.
