Keokuk

City and joint administrative headquarters (with Fort Madison) of Lee County, southeastern Iowa, on the Mississippi River, at the foot of the Des Moines River rapids, across from Hamilton, Illinois; population (2000) 11,400. It is a processing and distribution centre for local farm products such as corn and soybeans. Manufactured products include sponge rubber goods, corrugated cartons, and various metals and metal products.

Keokuk is the site of one of the original 12 national cemeteries. Over 4,000 Civil War soldiers are buried at Keokuk, most of whom died at the military hospital there. Civil War re-enactments are held in Keokuk every April. Other places in Keokuk which are recorded on the national register of historic places are William McGavie's house (1847), used in the underground railway (an escape route for runaway slaves), the Miller House museum (the house of Samuel F Miller), the courthouse of 1889, and the Keokuk Dam impounds the waters of the Mississippi River for hydroelectric power, navigation, and flood control, creating Lake Keokuk. When the dam opened in 1913 it was the world's largest energy generating plant.

History The first settlers arrived in 1820 and the American Fur Company established a post in 1829, around which the modern city grew. Mississippi steamboat traffic halted at the rapids in the 19th century, and Keokuk served as an important gateway to points in Iowa and farther west and north; a canal was built around the rapids in 1877.