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1900's |
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On July 4, 1897, Hubinger Pastime Park opened. The
park featured a variety of activities and facilities which
included the ride "Shoot the Chutes," an auditorium
and theatre, race track, and athletic field. Shoot the Chutes
was an amusement park ride sixty-seven feet high and three
hundred feet long. People would ride a flatboat down the chute
and into a shallow pond. Of the events at the Casino (auditorium
and theatre), some highlights were the speakers William
Jennings Bryan and Carrie Nation. The John Phillips
Sousa Band, the United States Marine Band, and the U.S. Army
Band also performed there. The athletic field was home to
the Keokuk Central Association
baseball team and the Keokuk High School football games. |
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| Teddy Roosevelt paid his first
of three visits to Keokuk April 29, 1903. On this
visit he spoke in Rand Park and pushed the button
to reopen Hubinger’s newly rebuilt factory. Roosevelt
visited Keokuk to speak in 1912 when he was running
for president on the Bull Moose ticket. He spoke at
Third and Main Streets as seen in the photo at right.
The statue of General Samuel Curtis can bee seen in
the background. |
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Built in 1910, the federal building opened at 7th
and Blondeau Streets. Now on the National Register of Historic
Places, the federal building was the site of the U.S. District
Court until 1957, and the site of the U.S. Post Office until
1990. |
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The statue on the Chief Keokuk
Gravesite in Rand Park was dedicated in 1913.
The statue replaced the previous stone top of the
monument. As legend has it, the idea for the statue
came from some hoodlums who stole a wooden cigar
store Indian and placed it on the monument. |
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| Original
Monument |
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Current
Photo |
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| Work was completed on the Keokuk
Lock and Dam #19, and Powerhouse in 1913.
At the time it was the largest electric generating
plant in the world. This photo shows the dry dock
area of the old lock where boats were worked on.
This area can still be seen between the old lock
and the new lock, although it is no longer used
for boat repair. |
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This
photo is a view of the lock from the north in
1918. The old bridge can be seen in the background. |
This
photo shows the Mamie S. Barret riverboat going
through the old lock on June 26, 1925. |
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| Hydroelectric power lead
to the 1915 creation of Keokuk Electro-Metals
by George Weissenburger, Keokuk Steel Castings
by Walter J. Miller, and Midwest Carbide
by Thomas Wettstein. |
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| In 1916, the old railroad
bridge was remodeled into a double-decker bridge
for railroad traffic underneath, and auto and pedestrian
traffic above. This bridge was replaced in 1985,
and is still used for railroad traffic. The Iowa
side of the old bridge is currently used as an observation
deck. |
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