Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1906-04-26
Major Meigs, Government En-
gineer, Tells of the Keokuk
Power Project
POWER HOUSE, IMMENSE AFFAIR
The Plans Show 1t Will be Over
Quarter of Mile in Lensth-Mam-
moth Dam to be Made of Solid Con-
crete Thirty-five Feet Wide at Its
Base-Iowa News.
Special to Tines-Republlcan.

SpSCldl 10 llJu6S-1tGpuDliSdu.
Keokuk, April 26.-Major Meigs,
government engineer in charge of the
upper Mississippi improvement work,
has made public the plans drawn up
for the Keokuk water power dam,
which shows the project to be one of
the most stupendous in the history of
modern engineering.
The new dam, as shown by the plans,
will consist in it's lower end, of a pow
er house, which power house will really
form part of the dam itself. 1t will
be built higher than the rest of the
dam, much wider, and all the mann
moth building will be above the high
est water. This building will contain
turbines and generators for the devel-
oping of electricity.
The power house will be over quar-
ter of a mile in length, beginning at
the lower end of what is now known as
the lower lock and extending up
stream 1853 feet. The power house
will be erected just outside the canal
embankment which will then be re-
moved to give the water access to the
wheels. The upper end of the power
house will be 1,S00 feet above the lock
From the upper end of the house the
dam proper will extend in a grand
curve to point near the mouth OF
CLANCY creek on the Illinois side OF the
river, and will be 5000 feet in length.
This mammoth dam will be Oh Sol1d
concrete. thirty-five feet wide on the
bottom and about thirty feet high. The
upper stream face is to be vertical
! with rounded top eight feet wide, the
lower side ending in a curve connect
ing with the bottom, so that the water
coming over will not fall, but shde
down the face and be given a horizon
tai direction at the bottom of the river.
The whole height is th1rty-e1ght leet
in the plans, which contemplate lock
ing it into the rock bottom seven feet
deep, to prevent any water getting IN
derneath.
The power house will be a magnifi-
cent structure of pressed brick ana
steel. which will, as before stated, be
1868 feet long and eighty-tWo rect
wide. The roof will be of trussed steel
and the windows alone set in steel
sash, everything being absolutely nre
proof, of the estimated cost OF SSo,ooo.
There will be forty-seven Immense
generators, of $500 horse power each'
working on vertical shaft, like the
generators of Niagara. The drawings
show these generators to be twelve
feet in diameter On the same vertical
shaft will be three different turbines,
one over the other, about nine feet IN
diameter, all working together to drive
the generator.
The maximum head of water on the
wheels will be at low water and VIII
amount to thirty feet. At extreme
high water the head is expected to be
| 81 feet.
Above the dam will extend lake
| twenty-four miles long and from
three fourths to one mile wide, one OF
| the prettiest sheets Of water anywhere
| in the country.
| So far as known, this great power
! plant. with it's accessories, will cost,
when completed from six to ten mil
lions of dollars. Mr.. Hugh L. Cooper
consulting engineer of the project, mas
! said that with modern methods, with
the thousands of men which he will
employ from the start, and with favor
able stages of the river, 1T would be
possible to build the whole thing in
two years.