Encyclopedia Dubuque
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KEY CITY GAS COMPANY: Difference between revisions
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[[Image:kcgas.jpg|left|thumb|450px|Key City Gas Company at 10 Bluff Street. Library of Congress]]KEY CITY GAS COMPANY. The contract for gas lighting with | [[Image:kcgas.jpg|left|thumb|450px|Key City Gas Company at 10 Bluff Street. Library of Congress]]KEY CITY GAS COMPANY. The contract for gas lighting with [[BARKER AND SPILMAN]] provided that the cost to the city should not exceed $2.50 nor to individuals should not exceed $3.50 per thousand feet. (1) Despite improvements, the company was not profitable. In 1880 Key City Gas assumed the franchise. | ||
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[[Image:keycitygas.png|left|thumb|350px|Receipts]] | [[Image:keycitygas.png|left|thumb|350px|Receipts]] | ||
Revision as of 18:09, 28 March 2015
KEY CITY GAS COMPANY. The contract for gas lighting with BARKER AND SPILMAN provided that the cost to the city should not exceed $2.50 nor to individuals should not exceed $3.50 per thousand feet. (1) Despite improvements, the company was not profitable. In 1880 Key City Gas assumed the franchise.
In 1910 the company had a new plant at 11th and Maple whose specifications were published in the leading engineering journals of the world. One of the unique features of the plant was the world's first reinforced gas "holder" tank. The coke handling department with its facilities for screening was the only one of its kind in the west. At the company's insistence, when the new plant was constructed only Dubuque labor would be used. (2)
The gas manufactured by the plant was all sold in Dubuque. The byproducts, however, including coke, coal tar and ammonia, were all sold outside the city. The Dubuque plant manufactured nearly all the ammonia used in the west with the gross tonnage of the new gas station the largest of any point on the CHICAGO, MILWAUKEE, AND ST. PAUL RAILROAD. (3)
In 1911 the Company had about twelve miles of pipe, 180 city lamps, and furnish lighting facilities to consumers at $3.50 per 1,000 cubic feet.
By the 1920s the Key City Gas Company was the largest coal gas plant in Iowa. In 1927-28 the gas plant, constructed about thirty years before, was remodeled. The additions included fifteen vertical coke ovens installed by the United Gas Improvement Company of Philadelphia. Of German invention, these ovens were the first of their kind constructed in the United States.
The 1868-69 Dubuque City Directory listed the northwest corner of Dodge and Bluff with the office at 104 1/2 Main.
The 1899-1900 Dubuque City Directory listed 669 Main.
The 1913 Dubuque and Dubuque County Directory through the 1929 Dubuque City Directory listed the address as 669-79 Main.
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Source:
1. Oldt, Franklin T., History of Dubuque County Iowa . Chicago: Goodspeed Historical Association, 1880. http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/franklin-t-oldt/history-of-dubuque-county-iowa-being-a-general-survey-of-dubuque-county-histor-tdl/page-11-history-of-dubuque-county-iowa-being-a-general-survey-of-dubuque-county-histor-tdl.shtml
2. "Key City Gas Works are Unexcelled in Matter of Completeness in the World," Telegraph-Herald, February 22, 1910, p. 1
3. Ibid.