Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1906-09-15
KEOKUK POWER TO !
COST S1O,OOO,OOO.
OF THE WATERS
OF THE MISSISSIPPI GREAT.
EST IN THE WORLD
Dam Almost Mile and Half Long
Will Be Constructed Into the Missis-
sippi River-Expected to Develop
10000 Horse Power.


sippi River-Expected to Develop
10000 Horse Power.
Keokuk, Sept. 13.-At an expense Of
ten millions Of dollars, and in addition
the destruction of present works cost
ing six millions of dollars, the greatest
dam in the world is to be built here
to develop the greatest electrical pow
er plant in the world.
Incidentally, the navigation Of the
Mississippi is to be greatly improved
and the old desire for deep water
channel from ST. Paul to ST. Louis Is
about to be gratified for at least the
worst forty miles of the river
The dam will be 101 feet less than
mile and half long. 1t will be thir-
ty-eight feet from foot to crest, with
five feet of this height lying in a chan
mel cut in the bed rock bottom of the
Mississippi. The head of the water
will be thirty-three feet and the pool
above the dam will extend to point
mile above Burlington, and cover
million dollars worth of real estate
now high and dry.
The dam built by the British govern
ment at Assuam on the Nile is little
larger, but it was built almost across
country for irrigation purposes, while
this one at Keokuk will be built across
the great Mississippi river at its most
powerful stretch, the foot of the Des
Moines rapids, where the current hith-
erto has been considered invincible.
The rapids are not navigable now
except under exceptionally favorable
conditions. They are passed by steam
boats by means of canal twelve
miles long, built by the government at
a cost OF s60.O00,OO0, and containing
three locks. All this will be drowned
by the new dam, but the one lock in
the dam and the deep water above it
will save the United States $4,000 a
year in operating expenses.
The dam and works will develop So
900 horse power as minimum and
100000 horse power as maximum,
depending on the stage of the river.
consequential in comparison, but the
whole project is based upon the fact
that factories will move to the power,
which will cost less than half what
they are paying for steam power
throughout the middle west.
There will be little loss in transmit
ting power to all points up river. in
Guiding Burlington, and to all points
down river, including Quincy. st. Lou
is is within the proved radius of eco.
nomical transmission; and Chicago
can buy power generated by the dyna-
mos here at a less price than it is now
costing manufacturers there. But it
Is expected that the full capacity of
the power plant will be used near it's
site by factories moving to this neigh
borhood
In all the modern instances, the pop
ulation has gone to five times the
horse power developed by turbines and
dynamos. This means 100000 more
people in Keokuk and it's environs. in
Guiding Hamilton, ILL.,, just across the
river, and Warsaw, ILL.,, five miles
away. Uniform experience may not
apply. however. to this biggest thing Of
the kind in the world, but very large
increase in population is a certainty.
The work is to be done under acts
of congress passed within the last four
years, all of them under suspension of
the rules by unanimous consent in both
houses. The plans must be approved
by the secretary of war, who has gen
eral supervision of the construction
and operation. But the work will be
done by and at the expense Of a group
of capitalists. mostly Canadian and
Bostonese, who built the greatest in
stallation at Niagara and other water
power electrical plants in Mexico and
South America
The power house will be 1919 feet
long and will contain twenty-six Of
the largest dynamos ever built A con-
tinuation of the power house will be
the water covered section of the dam,
5000 feet long and curving across the
river to point on the Illinois shore,
over mile away.
Finished in TWO Years.
The working plans are all complete,
and $4,000 has been spent on them
and the attendant investigations. The
million dollars worth of land to be
overfowed is now being bought up in