Pella Historical Society is taking the first steps at trying out a plot of land for a potential Tulip Field in the community. Executive Director Valerie Van Kooten says a group including PHSM Board president Chad Vande Lune, Board member Ed Sprague, Nick Branderhorst, and Kent Van Kooten, used an old planter to put bulbs in the soil at the old coal power plant next to Pella Corporation.

“We are doing a test plot today of strips of tulips,” she says. “We’d like to eventually, as part of the Oskaloosa Street corridor, turn some of this into tulip fields. We found an old tulip planter in the old float barn, got it out, and worked on it–it’s got a few kinks in it yet, and hopefully in a couple of years, we’ll have fields of gorgeous tulips.”

Pella Historical Society is working with the City of Pella and a concept designer to develop a potential recreational area, which could kick off development of the Oskaloosa Street Corridor Revitalization Project, another ongoing effort by the Pella City Council and city administration. Councilmember Lynn Branderhorst was also in attendance, as Van Kooten says she has been an advocate for development on the city’s south side, especially since she was elected two years ago.

“The city has had an idea, and especially Lynn Branderhorst, about revitalizing this south side and putting some of the history here and showing some of the beauty of it, and we’ve long had an idea about tulip fields, so we kind of got together and said, ‘hey, is this something that we could do on the same property?'” Van Kooten says. “Right now the city is going through the drawing phases and proposal phases, but it’s going to be a very cool project.”

“A lot of people don’t realize that south Pella was it’s own town for a long time–it didn’t become part of the City of Pella until 1870, and so it has its own history and that needs to be showcased.”

These tulip bulbs are meant to be a test round; the goal is to have a new tulip field in place by 2021.