Being Part of Something Bigger

    Keokuk, Iowa, enjoys a riparian ambience created by the south-flowing waters of the Mississippi River bordering the east and south edges of town.

     One hundred years ago, in 1909, results of the late-19th-century Industrial Revolution were evident as Keokuk's industries and river commerce flourished. The time was right for an enormous project: harnessing the Des Moines rapids by damming the Mississippi River at Keokuk. Private financiers searched for investors while negotiating with the Army Corps of Engineers to construct Lock & Dam 19.

     The late Tillie Wells, widow of Keokuk insurance agent Jelly Wells, once reminisced that she was about ten when she met Hugh Cooper, the engineer who designed the dam. Her family owned one of the few cars in town, and Cooper hired her father and his car. She remembered, "Mr. Cooper was a short, stout man who always smoked a big black cigar and wore a white Panama hat."

     The enormity of the construction project is mind-boggling even by today's standards. In 1913 the largest hydroelectric plant in the world, 100 years later it is second only to China's Three Gorges on the Yangtze River.

     Dam construction of this magnitude was dangerous, and men who wanted a good paying job knew the chances they were taking. But a man could make $20 a week—as much as those railroad men in Chicago! Nine hundred men took their chances. Red was one of those men. He had three good reasons to get hired: a wife and their newborn twin boys. After all, you could get hurt working at the levee or at Huiskamp's factory. Or at Taber’s Lumber Mill or the button factory. Right? This was no different. And Red was strong, hard-muscled. Opportunities like this didn't come along every day. "Besides," he'd laugh, "this'll be a good dam job!"

    His missus worried. Nothing about the project seemed safe: the monster steam machinery, open caissons, explosives, the river's current. Just too many chances for trouble she grumbled. Every day Red laughed off Reva's nagging worry, pulled his cap over his auburn hair, grabbed his lunch pail and headed to the job that was putting his little family on its feet. It felt good to be a man again.

     Working through 95-degree summer humidity the men kept building. Through blustery cold snowy winters, the men labored. Bitter Canadian winds blew down the river valley slowing the men and mules. But they worked. Blasting through 25 feet of river bottom limestone was arduous. But the powerhouse was anchored.

     There was always food on the table now, and a good fire to heat the kitchen. Red's boys waved to Papa as he left for work every morning. And they eagerly watched for his return after each 10-hour day. The little guys began to walk while Red was at work. Their first words were about the river, the dam, the lock. Reva and Red talked about someday putting electricity from the new power plant in their little home (but they'd keep the kerosene lamps just in case).

    Cooper's monumental project continued. Nothing like this had ever been done before. The Des Moines Rapids would be tamed and river commerce could reach Minnesota. Literally the world's eyes were turned to this little Iowa river town with the Big Idea. And Red knew he was part of history. As the towering construction grew taller "and started to look like something," he felt proud to be part of something bigger than himself. Something his sons would tell their grandchildren about…that dam would be standing til Jesus himself returned — and Red helped to put it there.

     Tourists came great distances to watch the construction without the benefit of guardrails or other protective equipment. One Sunday Red and Reva took the 3-year-old boys down to see the progress. Red spotted Mr. Cooper, sucking on a black cigar and belching smoke like a little freight engine, leading dignitaries around the construction site. Red said it was like the whole world was watching the birth of Keokuk's dam and Hugh Cooper was the proud daddy.

     It happened on a crisp spring day in 1913. The job was winding down and everyone knew it. An air of anticipation made the men jovial and impatient. Teasing and jostling, Red's men headed out to check the forms for today's pour. The scaffolding rose, a spider web silhouette against Illinois’ bright morning sky. Finally all was ready and the gargantuan pour began. Load after load of heavy, wet gray mush was dumped into the deep, hollow form that would become yet another massive wall. Communication was by hand gestures because no voice could be heard over the mangled roar of traveling rail derricks and concrete mixers.

     Nobody saw it happen, but when someone peered down into the cavern a man with red hair was waving his arms, screaming, trying desperately to stay afloat in the concrete quicksand. Everyone knew there was no help for Red. Even if he could be rescued, the delay would cause a "dry pour" resulting in a faulty pier. No, there was no help for Red. The men's faces became hard, their jaws clenched, as the foreman signaled for the pouring to continue. No one looked into the hole again.

     Keokuk took a week's holiday to celebrate the project’s completion on May 31, 1913. But Reva and the boys were not there for the ceremonies. They had moved away, far from their entombed Red. She could not bear to be so close to his agony. Later the sad little family succumbed to the 1918 flu epidemic.

     Today, when a barge locks-through Keokuk’s Lock and Dam 19, a piercing cry echoes across the tranquil town. In 1914 the men, who were there when Red was buried alive, shivered to hear the lock's new whistle. They said the eerie shriek sounded like a man's shrill scream as molten concrete entombed his living body deep within Keokuk’s Dam.