Encyclopedia Dubuque
"Encyclopedia Dubuque is the online authority for all things Dubuque, written by the people who know the city best.”
Marshall Cohen—researcher and producer, CNN
Affiliated with the Local History Network of the State Historical Society of Iowa, and the Iowa Museum Association.
KEY CITY GAS COMPANY
KEY CITY GAS COMPANY. Key City Gass was begun in Dubuque by Julius K. GRAVES and R. MacArthur in 1857. The auxiliary plant at Bluff and Dodge which alone served the city's needs for many years, succeeded the original plant built in 1857. Gas west of the Mississippi was then considered a novelty. Operations were taken over by J.B. Howard in 1880 and George McLean in 1899. McLean directed the construction of a new plant at 11th and Maple STREETS which had thirty times the capacity of the original plant.
Well-located for receiving coal by barge, the plant was completed in 1907 and was capable of handling one million cubic feet of gas daily. In 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 plant had a daily capacity of over one million cubic feet of gas.
