KEOKUK, a city of Lee county, Iowa, U.S.A., in the south eastern corner of the State, on the Mississippi river, at the mouth of the Des Moines. It is on Federal highways 61 and 161, and is served by the Burlington, the Rock Island, the Toledo, Peoria and Western, and the Wabash railways, and by river steamers and barges. The population in 1930 (Federal census) was 15,106.
Keokuk is at the foot of the Des Moines rapids in the Mississippi river, around which a navigable canal (opened 1877) was con structed by the Federal Government. Here was built by the Mis sissippi River Power company (1910-13) one of the largest hydro electric power plants in the world, generating 200,000 horse power. The dam proper is nearly a mile long, set in a channel cut several feet into the hard limestone bed of the river. The water wheels are four times the size of the largest previously made. As part of the conditions imposed on the company it built and transferred to the United States a lock larger than any at Panama, and a drydock practically the size of the one at the Brooklyn navy yard. Over 1,200 transactions were involved in acquiring the
land submerged by the lake (65 sq.m.) above the dam. Keokuk has a large wholesale trade and numerous and varied manufactur ing industries. There is a national cemetery here, containing (1927) 999 graves. The city was named after Keokuk, a chief of the Sauk and Foxes (178o-1848) who remained peaceful during the Black Hawk War, and whose grave is in Rand park. The word meant "the watchful" or "he who moves alertly." The first house on the site of the city was built in 1820, but there was no further settlement until 1836. The town was laid out in 1837, chartered as a city in 1848, and in 1910 adopted a commission form of government.