How the Des Moines Valley Railroad Came to Des Moines

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There has ever been a strong bond of friendship between the early settlers of Des Moines and the city of Keokuk, Iowa.This friendship began when that city on the Mississippi was a young and bustling town and Fort Des Moines was a little, muddy, smoky hamlet at the "Raccoon Forks of the Des Moines river."Keokuk, in those days, was our Chicago; for there we used to get our supplies.There come up in ' our memory the capacious warehouses of Chittenden & Mc-Gavic, Conable, Smyth & Co., B. B. Hinman & Co., Foote & Co., J. B. Carson, Stafford & McCune and others, perhaps, situated on or near the levee, where consignments of goods were stored intended for the interior of Iowa, waiting transportation by boat, during the boating season on the Des Moines river, or by wagon during the dry seasons over a wild prairie, in summer's heat, autumn's haze and through winter's snow-drifts.Keokuk bears the name of the "Gate City."A very appropriate cognomen; for through this gate nearly all the shipments t

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