Below is an excert from the book, Making of Iowa, Chapter 28, From Canoe to Railroad. It can be seen in full on the Iowa History Site. ```````````````````` The barge was flat bottomed, and was not unlike the barge of to-day, but has one or two masts bearing a square sail. If one mast, it was set forward. Near the stern was a cabin, and a platform on which stood th ehelmsman in order to mainipulate his great sweep. Some of these barges were one hundred feet long and twenty wide, and were rowed by fifty men. A keel boat was a barge with a shallow hold and low hull. The freight was "boxed" on deck, with a gangway, called the "walking board", on the two sides. This "walking board" might project over the hull. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ While Des Moines River Improvement was in its glory the boats running did a good business. They carried considerable freight and transported passengers from town to town. Standing on the deck of a steamer the crew and passengers joked and chaffed with the people on shore, as the channel swerved now to one side, now to the other. A steamboat could go clear to Fort Dodge. ~~~~~~~~~~ A number of towns sprang up along the banks at places designed for landings. While navigation lasted they attained considerable importance. But when the river became too shallow for the boats, and traffic ceased, the main occupation of these towns was gone. Their object for existing vanished, and in cases where the railroad did not help them they were left to dream of the times that were, and of those that might have been. Quiet, uneventful towns are these, eternally waiting for something to "turn up". ~~~~~~~~~~~ In May, 1854, the first rail for a railroad in Iowa was laid at highwater mark, in Davenport. The first locomotive on Iowa soil was set up at Davenport a few weeks afterward, and was christened Antoine Le Claire. Railroads were stretching westward from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, and were waiting on the east bank until time was ripe for them to cross into a new field. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Debbie Clough Gerischer Iowa Gen Web, Assistant CC, Scott County http://www.celticcousins.net/scott/ IAGENWEB: Special History Project: http://iagenweb.org/history/index.htm Gerischer Family Web Site: http://gerischer.rootsweb.com/