When Robert Keith laid out a village in 1837 in a place where he had little personal history, he might have been have forgiven for failing to understand just how bad a location it was. The spot sat low in the floodplain, which meant it was a good place for a steamboat landing. Unfortunately, it also meant that the site was frequently underwater. Over time, people built and rebuilt, until some 150 years later as the toll of increasingly worse flooding became too high. Drive through the heart of Keithsburg today and you’ll see a few abandoned buildings next to empty lots. It’s hard to imagine the once-flourishing small city that built up (and rebuilt) here. So to help you imagine, here are three pictures of the day, all from Keithsburg: one from 1906, another from the 1993 flood, and a third from a couple of weeks ago of the same block as the 1906 picture.
See more photos here.
Keithsburg, IL in 1906, looking west from 4th and Main; courtesy of Sharon Reason Museum of Keithsburg
Keithsburg, IL, 1993 flood; courtesy of Mercer County Historical Society
Keithsburg today, looking west toward the river from 4th & Main
