The Dam That Lit the Upper Mississippi
Near Nauvoo, Illinois
At the far southeastern corner of Iowa, where the Des Moines River meets the Mississippi at Keokuk, stands one of the great early hydroelectric achievements in American history. From nineteen ten to nineteen thirteen, engineer Hugh Lincoln Cooper oversaw construction of a dam and powerhouse that harnessed the rapids at Keokuk, a stretch of river that had blocked navigation since the earliest days of settlement.
When it opened, the Keokuk Dam was the largest hydroelectric plant in the world, generating enough power to light cities across Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri. Cooper had completed the project in just three years, an extraordinary feat for a structure spanning more than four thousand feet across the Mississippi.
Cooper went on to build major power projects in several countries, but he gained his most controversial fame later when he supervised construction of the Dnieper Dam in the Soviet Union for Joseph Stalin, a project that made headlines in the nineteen thirties.
