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This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.

Do you cringe when you see the words "new and improved," because experience has shown you that it often means "costs more and works half as well as the way your grandmother did it"? This story of the Corps of Engineers versus one of the largest obstructions in the Rock Island Rapids is for you.

This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.

To your list of fearless and feisty women—if you keep such a list—please add Kate Perry of Covington, Kentucky. During the Civil War, Miss Kate was the owner, operator, and conductor of her own highly illegal railroad.

This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.

One of the oddest projects ever to reach the Mississippi River was the seventy-five-mile Illinois and Mississippi Canal connecting Rock Island via thirty-three locks with the Illinois River at Hennepin, and from there to Lake Michigan. Completed in 1907, it was too little and too late to save the dwindling steamboat traffic on the Mississippi. It was seldom used, reaching a peak of one six-hundredth of its capacity in 1929 and closing for good in 1951.

This is Roald Tweet in Rock Island.

No community in America has arrived until it's had its bank robbery. Preferably, it should be by Jesse James, Dillinger, or Bonnie and Clyde, but in a pinch, just about any robbers will do.

This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.

A local newspaper columnist, noticing the public's general indifference to the less fortunate, frequently asks, "Is anybody there; does anybody care?"

This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.

Nearly all of us spend our lives working. Many of us are hired to fill jobs, some are offered positions; a very few are called.

This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.

As romantic and as mythic as the Mississippi River is, the names of towns sprinkled along its banks are fairly prosaic.

This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.

Fortunately for Rock Island, there are some men who cannot bring themselves to tell each other they are sorry, in so many words. They have to do it roundabout.