The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1910-07-21
TRAVELLING Man
WRITES OF CITY
Impressions of a Visitor to keokuk
+ Were All Favorable Ones After
He Knew the
Citizens.
u,rr rrrnnn Mountaineering
THE THREE MONUMENTS
Curtis Statue, Chief keokuk's Monu-
ment and BIrse Memorial Foun-
tain In Rand Park Are
Mentioned.

e. f. Strickland, travelling man,
who makes Keokuk on his rounds,
took occasion after his last - 1T here,
to write the following impressions OF
the city, which will prove interesting
reading matter, the same being pub
lished in his home newspaper at Ben
ton Harbor.
Characterless towns like the same
kind of people are plentiful enough
everywhere. They don't interest be-
cause there is nothing in them to in
terest even themselves. But town
with character like the genius-homo
Of that distinction is always worth
ing about.
Down on the little short tail of Iowa
where the more or less certain Des
Moines empties itself into the bosom
of the great placid motherly Mississ-
ippi is such town-its name is Keo-
kuk, and there's lots of things about
Keokuk worth knowing, that's good
and pleasant to know.
The spirit of Keokuk is the prin-
ciple that every man shall be judged
by his product and not by any acct
dent of birth or wealth, and that the
welfare of one is the concern of all.
The charm of Keokuk is not only
in the beauty of the sublime natural
scenery around the city, not alone in
the architectural beauty of the resi-
dences within the city, but is chiefly
in the good cheer and genuine hospi
tally of the body of citizens toward
all taken into the regard of the PEG
pie of the city.
THE value of Keokuk is not reall.
in its millions of bank deposits, no
in its other millions invested in com
merce and manufacture, but is tina
total sof the character, cheer and help
fulness of its inhabitants which is tn,
real Keokuk, and is thoroughly under
stood only il keokuk''
/ am sure a town that can sa,
these agreeable things of itself instea,
of bursting into print and paint OF
billboard and barn, that it is til,
proud manufacturing center of churn
and CRIBS, candy, corn planters an,
cement bricks, with factory sites ga
lore for more-deserves to have it
altrufstic attitude boosted by the al
en- and appreciative visitor.
Keokuk was and is still called tn
Gate City. II has somewhat bette
reason for its sobriquet than som
other western owns that were m y
by railroad its entrepot to a ne1
territory
Just aboNo the confluence OF tn
rivers are the rapids of the grea
river, where navigation was halted i
the olden days and boats had to dii
charge their cargoes and haul owe
land some eight miles for re-embark;
ton at me peep waters above or b.
low. This made Keokuk in yer
real sense the gate of the east waite
ways of the north-nor when in tn
late Sos after the war which demon
trated its need more than eve
when Uncle Sam built a broad c;
nal along the Iowa shore, with il
outer bank well out in the bed of tn
river itself, eight miles long, and wit
its lower locks at Keokuk's door
was it any less the Gate City tina
before?
And in the future will Keokuk sti
boast itself the portal of the Fathe
of Waters; when here shall be cho1
ed the onward sweep of the might
current and the great dam sunk (;
into the bed rock of the rivers be
tom and rising for above the highe
crest of the rivers surface, shall ha,
made it submerge the broad canal ar
many square miles of shore far /
the valley and formed great lal
the pressure Of whose waters at Il
dam will create fabulous power, whit
harnessed electrically is to serve i
captor, man, for perhaps still mo
wonderful achievements.
| know too many thousands of A
orleans even, familiar as we are wi
great projects and undertaking., t
idea of damming the Mississippi W
s------------------------------- -----------=-