Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1913-07-02
HARVESTING THE
MISSISSIPPI RIVER
KeOkuk Dam Will Generate Three
Times the Power Now Used in
Iowa Manufactures.
PROJECT NEARLY COMPLETED
AND NOW IN OPERATION,
Will Change the Manufacturing Cen
ter of the United States TO the
Mississippi Valley.

So quietly that even the newspa-
pers hardly know about it, even af-
ter 1t is nearly finished, there is being
built in the Mississippi, in the most
violent stretch of the great river, at
the foot of its impossible rapids, the
greatest power dam in the world, Gre
ating the largest water-power plant
In the world, to energize the largest
single electrical installation in the
world; and this is being done in the
very center Of the agricultural area
OF the United States to change with
one move on the economic chess
board the dominant production of the
first farming states in the Union
from corn and chickens to manufac-
tured products.
So large is this water power de-
yelopment that when it is completed
soon, it will shift the manufacturing
center of the United States and
greatly change the map of Industrial
ism in this country.
When the great Mississippi is
properly harnessed and bridled at
Keokuk it will constitute the largest
single power plant in the world More
than 100000 horsepower will be de-
veloped, which will be sent out over
a spiderweb Of trans mission wires
to drive the wheels of industry and
to turn night into day over radius
of $50 miles.
Another result that has been con-
jectured is the creation of a cotton
manufacturing district within Illi-
nois. At present cotton raised in
E-sii4.issippi and Louisiana is sent, by
devious and costly route, to the
New England mills, whence the An
ished product by another round
about course is finally shipped to its
logical market. The construction Of
the big power dam will reverse this
I condition.
With the completion of that engi-
neering feat cotton raised in south
ern states can be shipped up the riv-
er to its logical market and gradual
ly converted into cloth en- route. The
manufactured product then may be
sold in the north or shipped to the
Orient via the Mississippi river and
the Panama canal Thus will be ef-
fected not only saving in the ship
ping cost, but industrial conditions
in the middle west-particularly, in
Illinois, Iowa and Missouri-will be
stimulated through the diversion of
part of the cotton manufacturing
from the New England states to a
territory near the center of popula-
tion.
At the foot Of the Des Moines rap
ids, which are impossible most of
the year a great dam has been con-
structed across the river, extending
from Keokuk on the Iowa shore to
Hamilton on the Illinois bank, a dis
tance of 9,096 feet, and it is the
longest dam of its kind in the world.
The dam rises fifty feet above the
river bed and contains 119 spillways
controlled by steel food gates each
80 feet wide by IL feet high and op-
Grated by electric power. In connec-
tion with the dam there is a short
canal to lock the river boats over
the obstruction. The lock will have
q lift of forty feet and will be 10
feet wide and 400 long.
The power house will be 17sO
feet long by 123 feet wide and 1873
feet high above the foundations. In
side this huge building thirty large
turbine waterwheels will whirl as
many electric generators. mammoths
OF their kind. An ice vender is be-
ing built up stream for $500 feet OF
concrete masonry, pierced below the
water line to admit the full strength
of the current for power, but at the
surface, and above, made solid to
prevent ice and logs from reaching
the power generating machinery.
The entire construction calls for
1000 tons of steel and 650,0O0 bar
rels of Portland cement. The dam
ming of the big stream created
real lake containing sixty square
miles. Towers 100 feet high will
carry the wires transmitting to st.
Louis the electricity generated. The
towers will be conspicuous along q
course of $50 miles.
The generators have been Installed
on top Of the wheel pit directly over