The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1911-12-10
Some sideIights on Construction Of
New Lock Here in Connection
With the Building Of
the Dam.
GATUN LOCKS COMPARED
The Keokuk Lock Will Lift Boats at
One Operation While Those
at Panama VIII Re-
quire Three.

Iowa will soon have q greater lock
than any one on the Panama canal.
| Work on the new lock by which
steamboats, will be lifted forty feS,r
| to pass the great dam being built
across the Mississippi river here is
now so far under way that one can
appreciate the immense size OF this
lock which in some essential respects
surpasses the celebrated Gatun locks.
In the Panama canal the Gatuh
locks rise by three steps and the
head of water against each of the
gates is twenty-three feet; the new
Keokuk lock lifts the boats at only
one operation, and the head OF water
against the gates is forty feet. 1t is
a saying that the gates are the lock;
and by this token the Keokuk lock is
u greater piece of engineering than
any lock on the isthmus. The Keo-
kuk lock has the same width as the
Panama lock, 10 feet, SO that the
gates have the same length and much
greater height The length of the
Keokuk lock is 400 feet, all neces-
sary for river traffic, although maxi
ing it longer would have been only a
matter of increasing the length of
the side walls.
The total height of lift at Panama
made by three steps makes there
really three locks one above the 9th
er, no one of which is as large in
its gates as is the new lock being
built at Keokuk, with its lift Of forty
feet.
Walls Like City Block.
The side walls of the lock are now
being built. They are set in trench
channeled in the bottom of the river,
which is of bedrock limestone. The
walls have base over all fifty-two
and a half feet thick, the inner thirty
three feet being solid and the rest
being an arch construction. The walls
are fifty-two and third feht high.
They about equal a row of three
story buildings 400 feet long and of
solid concrete.
The lock wall nearest the Iowa
SnOiS OlftuSS Tic 1OtA lIOH luc III y
dock and is somewhat more massive
and stronger than the other wall on
| the side next the river. In the lower
part of each wall are large culverts to
carry the water into and out of the
lock as it is operated for the passage
of river craft.
/ The size and details Of the lock
structure have been approved by tie
war department which looks after the
preservation of river navigation The
! dam and new lock makes one of the
greatest improvements ever accom-
plished on the Mississippi river. Civ.
/ ing deep water for sixty-five miles
above Keokuk, including stretch OF
about dozen miles now impossible
except through government canal
which it costs Uncle Sam $4,000 a
| year to operate and maintain.
Where Uncle Sam Wins Out.
This great lock and the big dry
dock beside become the absolute
property of the United States as soor
as completed and ready for operation
The Mississippi River Power com
rany builds them and turns them over
to Uncle Sam without cent of ex
pense to the government
/ In addition, the government will
save the $4,000 year which it nov
costs to maintain the canal and three
locks along the Des Moines rapids.
And it is conseryatiyely estimated
that the Improvement to navigation
now very live topic along the Mis-
sippi, which this dam produces coult
not have been attained by the gov
eminent for 100000.
The present canal and lock her,
will be drowned under over thirt.
foet of water by the new dam, whicl
is the greatest power dam in tn
world and it is part of the larges
hydro-electric installation in $ tn
world
I