The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1909-07-01
old RIVER PILOT
HAS The FAITH
IE. Il. Thomas Believe. that the Be.
Moines River is SIN
Good Path for
Steamboats,.
BRIDGES IN THE WAY.
About the Only Thing unfsvorable a
the Present Time Is the
Bridges Along the
Stream.
BRIDGES IN THE WAY.

e W..
mas been for fifteen years. nayigable
for steamboats,. from four and one
Ione half to Eve months each year, and
It should be improved. so taat the
shippers and boats can use it for the
full boating season of seven months. =
said Z. H. Thomas. in a letter writ
ten to A. c. Miller Of Des Moines. He
is q retired steamboat pilot, residing
at Ottumwa, and an authority on
Iowa's inland navigation through his
long experience on rivers in this
state
MI. Thomas was resident OF Bent
onsport during the sos. He has a
distinct recollection of the steamboats,
which passed up and down the Des
moines river He says, in part:
More than forty different Mississip-
pi steamboats, were in the trade dur
ing the late SOS and up to 1865. They
went up the river to Ottumwa, and
q few OF them to Fort Dodge.
AS you know it is a part OF the
state history that in 1919 General
Samuel R. Curtis, graduate Of West
Point, made survey up the Des
Moines river and recommended that
the stream be improved and made
navigable. According to his plan, this
was to be done by the dam and canal
system. Twenty-eight dams and
twenty-nine miles of short canals
here and there, to straighten the riv-
er, and take the short bends out OF it.
General Curtis informed the depart
ment at Washington that this improve
ment would do three things. to-wit:
Three Good Features.
Il. That in placing these dams
about ten miles apart they would hold
the water and back 1t up stream from
one dam to another, and make slack
water navigation from the mouth Of
the river to Des Moines, a distance
of 2O4 miles.
p. That such dams would furnish
q cheap and permanent water power
for the different towns along the
river.
3. That by the building OF levees
all of the lowlands subject to over
flows would be protected, reclaimed,
and their value greatly increased.
This was the proposition as pre-
sented by Gen. Curtis. An eastern
company, known as the Des Moines
River Improvement and Navigation
Company, entered into contract to
do the work, and started it at st.
Francisville, near the mouth OF the
river. The work was pushed along
and seven dams were completed, bring
ing the back and deep water to point
thirty miles from Ottumwa and ten
miles above Keosauqua.
Dams No Good.
The building was watched by the
people with much interest, but the
character of the work being done by
the company convinced them that it
was a graft, and so it proved. The
dams we're of cheap and temporary
character. A crib of logs was thrown
across the river, the crib filled with
rock and then covered with oak plank.
It was swindle, and yet these graft
ers from the east had demonstrated
that the dam and canal system recon-
mended by General Curtis was COM
plete success. More than forty steam
boats used this 40-mile stretch of riv-
er for a period Of ten years and
found plenty of water. They used the
river until the cheap dams had rotted
and been swept away by the floods