As last year came to an end, so did public access to the Centennial Building. The building, home to the Iowa City research facility of the State Historical Society of Iowa (SHSI) since 1956, provided researchers, students and anyone curious about Iowa history with access to 34,700 cubic feet of archival materials, including thousands of books, more than a century worth of newspapers and county records, manuscripts, letters, photos and maps donated to the SHSI and a repository of oral histories.
Six months before the front doors of the Centennial Building were locked on Dec. 31, 2025, SHSI, a division of the Iowa Department of Administrative Services (DAS), ordered the building permanently closed and its collection dispersed, presenting the decision as a cost-saving measure. Save Iowa History — a coalition of historians, professional archivists, grad students, people whose families have donated documents and other items to the Iowa City archives and members of the public interested in Iowa history — challenged the closure and members filed a lawsuit in September, seeking to have the decision reversed.
On Thursday afternoon, Johnson County District Court Judge Kevin McKeever sided with the coalition members, and overturned the SHSI/DAS order.
“The closure of the Centennial Building,” McKeever wrote in his decision, “… would have a negative impact to the public interest.”
The decision to shutter the Centennial Building took historians, researchers and others interested in state and local history by surprise when it was announced last year on June 17. There had been no attempt to solicit public input about the decision, or any advance warning that such a major change was under consideration. Despite that, SHSI Administrator Valerie Van Kooten said in the news release announcing the closure plan, “The decision was not made lightly.”
“We take seriously the stewardship of Iowa’s history through its collection, artifacts, and programs, and we are committed to providing the highest level of care for these items as well as the best possible experience for our patrons and the people of Iowa,” she wrote.
None of this was convincing to those who knew the Iowa City archives.
“You’re not being transparent,” Mary Bennett, a former special collections coordinator who worked at the Iowa City facility for 49 years before retiring in 2023, said during public comments at the SHSI Board of Trustees meeting in late June 2025. “Gov. Reynolds and your office made this decision unilaterally, relying on a very small handful of people, and I’m sorry, but this is erasing our history.”
During the meeting, Van Kooten said the planned closure was a response to a projected shortfall in its FY 2027 budget, which took effect July 1, 2026. According to Van Kooten, SHSI leadership had only been given a few weeks to come up with a solution to its budget problem.
The trustees had not had the plan presented to them before it was announced. During the late June meeting, then-director of DAS Adam Steen told the trustees the department considered involving them in the decision to be unnecessary. (Steen resigned his position in August to launch a campaign for governor, calling himself “a Jesus guy” and “a Make America Great Again guy.” He finished a distant third in the Republican primary, winning 14.9 percent of the vote.)
State Archivist Tony Jahn defended the decision to shutter the Iowa City research center, and in an interview on Iowa Public Radio in August 2025, he, like Van Kooten, said the closure was necessary because of budget cuts, and, like Van Kooten, claimed the Centennial Building was in need of repairs and upgrades totaling several hundred thousand dollars. He also claimed transferring material from Iowa City to the SHSI archive in Des Moines would make for greater public access.
“Let’s provide as much public access as we can to the materials, but then also preserve those materials in a single location, so the public can come in and they can have a one-stop shop where they can find everything that they need,” Jahn said on Talk of Iowa.
But according to Jahn’s estimates, only about 40 percent of the archival material in the Centennial Building would be transferred to Des Moines facility. Neither Jahn, SHSI nor DAS has offered a clear explanation of how the rest of the collection will be disposed of.
Mary Bennett, who after more than 50 years working at and using the Iowa City research facility knows it better than almost anyone, rejected the claims that the Centennial Building was in need of expensive and extensive upgrades, pointing out the building had undergone renovation in the recent past.
Bennett is one of the leaders of Save Iowa History. The coalition held events to inform the public of the imminent closure of the Centennial Building, and rally support for the Iowa City facility. The coalition has launched an online petition drive to ask the state to reverse its decision, which by the time the coalition held its biggest rally on Aug. 23, 2025, had attracted more than 5,000 signatures. That rally, which started at the Iowa City Public Library, featured a mock funeral march to Centennial Building, complete with a band accompanying marchers and a realistic-looking, full-size cardboard coffin for Iowa history.
The following month, Bennett and 16 other members of Save Iowa History filed a lawsuit, seeking to halt the planned closure and overturn the decision by SHSI and DAS. At the heart of the case was the simple fact that Chapter 8a of Iowa State Code mandates SHSI “Maintain research centers in Des Moines and Iowa City.”
The 17 petitioners also argued the closure would violate the terms a legal settlement SHSI entered into in 1983, and that moving some of the archival matter would violate commitments made to some of the people who donated it. The lawsuit received support from numerous scholars and professional organizations, including the American Council of Learned Societies, the Society of American Archivists and the American Historical Association, all of whom attested to the unique value of the Iowa City facility.
Last October, just days ahead of the first hearing in the lawsuit, and well ahead of the previously announced schedule for dismantling the Iowa City archives, workers began moving material out of the Centennial Building.
Professional organizations like the Society of American Archivists have standards for how to handle the transfer or deaccession of archival collections. Moving or removing collections requires thorough studies of those collections, the condition of the materials within a collection, and how a collection relates to other collections in the archive. That hadn’t happened when the movers began their work on Oct. 6.
DAS didn’t even hire movers with special training in handling delicate material. Instead, the department went with the low-cost option of using prison labor supplied by Iowa Prison Industries.
The petitioners in the Save Iowa History lawsuit filed a request for an emergency hearing on a temporary injunction to stop the removal of material from the Centennial Building. On Oct. 24, Judge McKeever granted the injunction.
The injunction did not, however, do anything to prevent SHSI and DAS from closing the Centennial Building on Dec. 31, or address the underlying arguments against the closure. Judge McKeever’s ruling issued Tuesday did.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the judge found that “Maintain research centers in Des Moines and Iowa City” meant SHSI had to maintain a research center in Iowa City. The judge also rejected the state’s argument that “the condition of the Centennial Building is so poor and physical maintenance thereof is so expensive that the research center must be closed.” McKeever found the filings by the petitioners that “the building actually is in good condition and can be utilized for years to come if it undergoes routine maintenance” to be convincing. He also found that if “the historical materials within the building are moved, they may be damaged or destroyed, which would not be in the public interest.”
The judge then overturned the SHSI/DAS order to close the Iowa City research facility, and ordered the agencies to pay the court costs in the case. He gave attorneys for both parties “30 days in which to confer in good faith and determine whether they can agree on language effectuating the reversal of the DAS decisions.” McKeever left open the possibility of appointing a special master to implement his ruling if the parties cannot agree.
The Reynolds administration has the option of appealing McKeever’s decision, but has not yet announced if it will.
Members of Save Iowa History greeted the decision on Tuesday with a sense of relief, happy that the future of the Centennial Building may finally be settled. They are, however, prepared to keep up their fight.
“Our message remains the same,” Mary Bennett told Little Village in an email. “This is a nonpartisan issue that impacts all Iowans who care about Iowa history and how we fit into the narrative taught in our schools or shared across the nation and around the world. We hope for a brighter future for the State Historical Society of Iowa, in both Iowa City and Des Moines, where adequate funding and higher professional standards can be achieved through collective action and generational investment.”
