By Tamara Browning
AN reporter
A survey of transportation development in Muscatine County soon will be available online at the Muscatine County website.
The Muscatine County Board of Supervisors heard a report during its meeting on Aug. 19 on the 567-page, completed study “Survey of Transportation Development in Muscatine County ‘Certified Local Government’ Grant Project.”
Muscatine County Historic Preservation Commission member William “Bill” Koellner presented to the board of supervisors the study that the commission launched over a year ago. The project involved researching and documenting themes in the development of transportation and related historic resources in Muscatine County.
The study has information on several types of transportation, including rail, stagecoach and roads. Commissioners and a consultant helped with research. It was approved by the State of Iowa and reviewed by the commission.
“A little more than a year ago, we came here and asked for permission to do a grant on historic transportation,” Koellner said. “We’re the first in the state of Iowa to do a transportation study simply because our county opened up shortly after the Black Hawk Purchase.”
The Black Hawk Purchase was the purchase of approximately 6 million acres of land the United States government made for $640,000 on Sept. 21, 1832, after the Black Hawk War, according to Encyclopedia Dubuque. The American Indian tribes Sauk, Fox and Winnebago originally owned the land.
Recording the information in the study is important, Koellner said.
“If we don’t capture this now, people are going to be gone,” Koellner said. “I’m 81 and a lot of the people we talked to are older than that.”
The study includes information that in 1817 the steamboat Virginia came up the Mississippi, and previously, forts were built at locations such as Keokuk, Fort Madison plus Rock Island, Illinois.
“In 1833, the first hotel was built down along the Mississippi River here in Bloomington, called ‘The Miller Hotel.’ That opened up people to stay, again to migrate,” Koellner said. “The balance of the county, people came in, land grant $5 an acre, and purchased land.”
An electric interurban line existed between Clinton and Muscatine from 1912 to 1938. Land was purchased for rights of easement between Muscatine and Iowa City, but it wasn’t developed and was sold after 1938 because the project was no longer viable economically, Koellner said.
Several railroads operated in Muscatine County, including the Milwaukee railroad, which had a stop in Ardon.
“Number of railroads. We were really a bustling community,” Koellner said.
In other action, the board affirmed Eric Furnas’, Planning, Zoning and Environmental administrator, acceptance of a proposal of $957 for masonry work on the Muscatine County Courthouse’s clock tower with TNT Tuckpointing and Building Restoration LLC. The work was completed in conjunction with the roof project.