Top Photo by Ed Vinson Photography

     F. A. Whitney recounts, in an article published by the Iowa History Project: “In the spring of 1871, I left Burlington for Keokuk where the canal was being constructed around the Des Moines Rapids, which lies between Keokuk and Montrose. The work was laid off in sections or pits. The rock excavation pits were at Price’s Creek and Ballinger, extending to Nashville.The dirt pits were at Price’s Creek and Hickory’s Point. The outside embankment, then under construction, was nine miles long. A four-foot gauge railroad track was built on the whole length of the embankment. Each pit had its track and switches.

     Two small locomotives and 66 cars were built especially for the project.They ran from the stone quarries near Keokuk to the canal site on tracks which were extended up the embankment.The movement of supplies across the rail tracks did result in a few accidents during the construction period.Whitney reported one incident when he was on a train that jumped the track, turned over, and landed wheels up in the air on the river’s edge. The tank had gone out into the water and only a corner of it could be seen. The engineer, Edward Johnson, had jumped from the engine when it left the track. The fireman, who was Mr. Whitney, went with the engine into the river.
Whitney had to swim around the train to get back onto the shore and, as he recalls it, when he reached the shore, there was a gang of section men working in the area. As he reached the group, he says that an Irishman by the name of Ward came up to him and said “Sure a man born to be hung never drowned,” not much consolation.

     The Corps of Engineer pamphlet, “Taming of the Des Moines River,” referred to in the last article, reported that on October 18, 1867, Colonel Wilson and the contractor located the center line of the canal and moved the first wagon load of earth for the embankment.The embankment was built first as a buffer for the rest of the construction. It wasn’t until 1870 that the work was in full force.Work continued until 1877. On the morning of August 22, 1877, the Rock Island District snag boat, Montana, with District Engineer Colonel John N. Macomb on board, entered a guard lock at the head of the canal. The cost of the completed canal was $4,155,000.00.

     At the north end of the canal was a guard lock and then downstream came the northerly- most lift lock, which was near Price’s Creek, and finally at the southerly end of the canal at Keokuk, the lower lift lock. Combined, the two lift locks provided a total lift of 18.75 feet. At each of the locks was a 27 foot square stone building housing the lock operating machinery. Gates were opened and closed by a steam pump so that only one man was needed to operate each lock. Filling and emptying the lock was by gravity.

     At the time that the lock was near completion, a new employee joined the Rock Island District. He was Montgomery Meigs, a United States Civil Engineer and the son of theMontgomery C. Meigs who had assisted Robert E. Lee in preparing the original survey of the Rapids in 1837. In 1884, the younger Meigs was placed in charge of the Des Moines Rapids Canal and remained in charge at the Keokuk office until his retirement in 1926. The canal continued to allow for the navigation across the Des Moines Rapids from August of 1877 until October of 1912 when it was finally closed for good. In an article dated August 19, 1877, the NewYork Times reported “the improvement is of incalculable importance to the navigation of the Mississippi River as it removes the only obstruction remaining between New Orleans and St. Paul. The work of transferring around the rapids during low water has always been attended with heavy expense, and has materially increased the cost of river transportation. It was for the purpose of obviating this that the canal was built.”