The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1912-09-26
IS NEARING COMPLETION.
The Greatest Power Plant Is to be
Started Next Spring by Our
Next President.

Especial to The Leon Reporter3
Keokuk, Iowa, Sept. 21.-With
only a few more of the .119 arched
spans to be completed in the great
est dam in the world, with the larg-
est power house on earth rising high
in the air, and with the lock in the
Panama class, almost cast In con-
crete, the colossus of Water-poWers
is rapidly approaching completion
here in the limestone bottom OF the
Mississippi river.
The mammoth Keokuk dam has
progressed it's short mile of distance
from its start in the Illinois bluffs
and there remains the building OF
the immense spillways between it's
piers. The power house basement
il done for it's northern half and the
walls are rising high into the sky,
while the lower half of it's third OF
a mile of length is fast being shap-
ed to confine the turbulent Missis-
sippi in the forebay. The Lock gates
are the next thing in the colossal
lock which has higher lift and the
same width as those at Panama.
The dry dock, the largest in fresh
navigation is closed for this winter,
as it covers the lower canal lock.
This lock, the dry dock, and the
abandonment of the worn out canal
and three locks, is a part OF the
millions of dollars of toll charged
the water-power company by the
United States for permission to dam
the Mississippi. The giant turbines,
several times the largest ever built
before and record breakers in power
efficiency, are arriving and being set
up. Single parts of them would fill
an ordinary parlor full, and the
bearing alone of each shaft is as big
as a smoke house. Practically all
the towers of the 1877 mile trans
mission line to St. Louis are built
and work is progressing stringing
tn seven copper cables on them.
Tens of thousands of visitors have
come to see the greatest engineer
ing achievement in history, except
possibly the Panama canal, and they
include many of the prominent en-
gineers of Europe. The latter are
much interested in the ways and
means by which Chief Engineer
Cooper has accomplished the impos-
sible a half dozen times in this
Mississippi river water power. They
have had fine opportunities to see
the work here, as it is SO near COM
pletion, and not yet submerged.
Construction is now going on with
remarkable speed. The sooner it is
done the quicker will fixed charges
of thousands of dollars a day be
changed into receipts from power
sold cheap because in competition
with the cheapest steam coal in the
world. A gratifying fact is that &C
cidents to the many men employed
are rare, notwithstanding the con-
gestion of the great work within the
cofferdams in the Mississippi.
The cities in the water-power
zone are arranging to have the Mis-
sissippi turned into the turbines and
the greatest water-power ever pro-
jected, started by the next presi-
dent of the United States standing,
surrounded by the twenty-one COVER
nors of all the states in the Missis-
sippi valley. 1t is a good deal
easier to fix the date for this than
to determine the identity of the men
who will be in that group which will
help start the Mississippi after Hugh
l.. Cooper has harnessed it to the
turbines and put the bit in it's teeth.
The date will be one of the first of
the balmy days of next summer.