Banner Lakes at Summerset State Park Maps

Banner Lakes at Summerset State Park Description

Banner Lakes at Summerset State Park, Iowa’s newest state park, is nestled in the rolling landscape between Des Moines and Indianola on Highway 65/69, within minutes of the state’s largest metro area. Many locals remember the area as Banner Pits, when the area was mined for coal by the Banner Coal Company in the early 1930s. According to an article dated September 15, 1932 in the Des Moines Tribune, “...the coal mining operation was the largest strip mining operation to take place in Iowa. The coal--an unusually good grade of Iowa product--could not be mined in the ordinary way because of the