Main Street in downtown Keokuk is also U.S. Highway 218, which is usually not the best arrangement as it brings heavy traffic that does not want to stop at local businesses, but still brings the negative effects of automobiles, particularly tractor trailers and their pollution. Nonetheless, Main Street is overall in good condition and has…
Residential Neighborhood West of Dowtown, Keokuk, Iowa
“The town has a population of fifteen thousand now, and is progressing with a healthy growth. It was night, and we could not see details, for which we were sorry, for Keokuk has the reputation of being a beautiful city. It was a pleasant one to live in long ago, and doubtless has advanced, not…
Up The Hill from the Dam, Keokuk, Iowa
“Keokuk was easily recognizable. I lived there in 1857, an extraordinary year there in real-estate matters. The “boom” was something wonderful. Every-body bought, every-body sold-except widows and preachers; they always hold on; and when the tide ebbs, they get left. Any thing in the semblance of a town lot, no matter how situated, was salable,…
The Union Electric Hydroelectric Dam, Keokuk, Iowa
We’ll get started with the major landmark in Keokuk. The Cahokia Power Plant was just one cog in a much larger machine that Union Electric didn’t build but purchased shortly after its completion at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. Keokuk and St. Louis have more than one link, and the first we will talk…
Iowa River Towns
Starting at the end of June, at the end of each month the rest of the summer, I will be featuring an Iowa river town north of St. Louis along the Mississippi. These cities, such as Keokuk, have a more direct link to St. Louis, as Union Electric built a hydroelectric dam here just over…
Calvary Chapel, Former First Baptist Church, Maryland Heights
I spotted this interesting church on the way to the mansion I featured yesterday. While today it’s Calvary Chapel, originally it was the First Baptist Church of Maryland Heights, with a pastor named Milton McBride. Instead of a single dove, there were three stylized crucifixes in the clerestory window above the front portico.
John L. Miers House, Maryland Heights
Built in 1905 for John L. Miers, the house at the northwest corner of Midland Avenue and Smiley Road is now threatened with demolition. Miers was president of the United Railways streetcar company, and rather appropriately, a line ran right out front of the house (though obviously he could have afforded his own transportation). It…
Former Municipal Courts
The behemoth of the old Four Courts, named after the building in Dublin and demolished long ago, was based off the Tuileries Palace in Paris, as I mentioned a couple of years ago. Its attached jail was quite a work of engineering and architecture, with a huge half rotunda and tiers of cells. Replacing it…
St. Louis Medical Examiner, The Morgue
For years after the demolition of the old Four Courts the morgue was still used at the corner of Twelfth and Spruce streets (you can see in the 1920 photo below how the old courthouse has vanished). But finally in 1927, the City of St. Louis turned to its staff architect, L.R. Bowen of the…
Former Police Headquarters
After featuring the Police Academy, I realized I had never shown the old Police Headquarters at the southwest corner of Clark and Tucker. It is now only partly occupied, with evidence storage, from what I understand, and that was told to me over a decade ago. It could have changed since then. You can actually…