The Daily Gate City (Keokuk, Iowa)
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
6,479 issues from 1855 to 1916, published in Keokuk, Iowa, digitised for Chronicling America.
Located at the confluence of the Des Moines and Mississippi rivers, Keokuk is one of two county seats in Lee County and one of the oldest communities in Iowa. It began as a trading post in the 1820s and evolved into a settlement, village, and city over the next 20 years. It is unknown why it was named for the legendary Sauk chief, but the settlement became known as Keokuk shortly after the conclusion of Blackhawk’s War in 1832. It was incorporated in December 1847.
The Daily Gate City was not the first newspaper in Keokuk. That distinction belonged to the Iowa Argus and Lee County Advertiser, a Democratic paper founded by the first state auditor, William Pattee, in 1846. The following spring, in May 1847, brothers John W. and Robert B. Ogden started the Keokuk Register as an alternative voice in support of the Whig Party. In 1849, this paper was merged with the Des Moines Valley Whig, which had been established at Keosauqua in July 1846 by James Bruen Howell and James H. Cowles. This merged publication became the Keokuk Daily Gate City, which has been published by the Gate City Publishing Company since 1855.
The history of the Daily Gate City is closely intertwined with the lives and careers of James Bruen Howell and Samuel Mercer Clark. Howell was one of the founders and an early editor of the paper. An intensely political figure, Howell worked tirelessly to advance the cause of the Republican Party in Iowa and across the nation. He vigorously opposed slavery and…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Keokuk, Iowa, United States
- Language
- English
- Collection
- Chronicling America
- Licence or status
- None stated by the archive
- Rights
- The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety.
- Credit
- Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities
- Who can read it
- Teens profiles and older (placed by Invisible Network from what the archive says; archives give no ratings)
- Archive
- Library of Congress