Crime Scene & Biohazard Cleanup Near West Hamilton Hamilton, IL

Hamilton is a city in Hancock County located directly across the Mississippi River from Keokuk, Iowa, and it is the largest city in Hancock County.

Hamilton was laid out in 1852 by several area men including Samuel Gordon and Bryant Bartlett, incorporated as a town in 1854, and re-incorporated as a city in 1859.

The town was named for Artois Hamilton of nearby Carthage, the wealthiest of the early investors, after the founders rejected names such as Bartlett, Rapid City, Gordon, and East Keokuk in hopes he would invest generously.

Hamilton had a population of 2,753 at the 2020 census, down from 2,951 in 2010.

Just upriver from Hamilton is Lock and Dam No. 19, completed in 1913; at about 4,620 feet it is the longest dam on the Upper Mississippi, and its lock's maximum lift of 38.2 feet is the second highest on the Mississippi River.

The Keokuk power plant built with the dam was, at its completion in 1913, among the largest electricity generating plants in the world, and the dam and Keokuk Energy Center remain landmarks of hydroelectric power on the river.

The dam created Lake Cooper, the largest pool in the Upper Mississippi lock-and-dam system with about 240 miles of shoreline, which submerged the once-treacherous Des Moines Rapids.

The first Keokuk and Hamilton Bridge, opened in 1871 at a cost of over $1 million, was built entirely of iron by Andrew Carnegie's Keystone Bridge Company; after a new bridge opened in 1985, the old bridge's Keokuk end became an observation deck overlooking the river and dam.

Before the dam, the neighboring settlement of Montebello had a steamboat stop and ferry landing at the foot of the Des Moines Rapids; most of its site now lies under the water of Lake Cooper.

Hamilton is famous among rockhounds for the geodes found in the area's streambeds and limestone, and it celebrates that heritage with Geode Fest each September, held together with neighboring Keokuk.