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Encyclopedia Dubuque

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CITY ISLAND: Difference between revisions

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Revision as of 03:28, 11 July 2013

Cityisland.jpg

CITY ISLAND. Once large enough to provide a seasonal airport for Dubuque, Ham's Island in the 1930s was considered an industrial location. According to the comprehensive city plan (1929-1936), "the development of Ham's Island primarily for industrial purposes is linked up with the idea of bringing river transportation service further into the present industrial section of the city by the relocation, widening and deepening of the Lake Peosta channel."

In 1933 the Dubuque City Council purchased 162 wild and woody acres of city island for $10,000. Unemployed men, recruited by the Civil Works Administration during the Great Depression, leveled trees, ripped out stumps and slashed away underbrush. After extensive grading, two runways, each 2,600 feet long and 100 feet wide, were constructed of MACADAM and cinder surface. The new airport was reached by a road linking the site to the foot of East 16th Street.

Operations at the City Island airport began in June 1934, when two Dubuque Airways planes were flown to the site from NUTWOOD PARK. With no hangars or gas tanks, planes had to be tied down at night. Nutwood Park's metal hangar was later dismantled and rebuilt at the new site; a new hangar with an office was constructed within one year. Electricity was supplied by a portable gas-powered generator. There were "His" and "Her" outhouses.

Business at the City Island airport was not brisk. Lewis Boxleiter, Collins' successor as airport manager, applied for a low-flying permit and inspected high transmission lines when foul weather prevented linemen from driving over snow-drifted roads. Each spring because of floods the planes had to be flown to high ground in Waterloo, Iowa, or Galena, Illinois. In 1938 sixty-four days of business at the City Island airport were lost due to flooding. The airport flooded from March 31 until April 17 in 1939. It was submerged again on April 28.

Flying instruction began in earnest in January 1940, with the start of the Civilian Pilots Training Program. After the start of WORLD WAR II, a new hangar was constructed. The navy's objection to the city's inadequate airport led the Chamber of Commerce to conduct a survey as a first step in establishing a first-class airport for the city. The City Island airport was closed in September 1948. The Dubuque (Regional) Municipal Airport was dedicated October 24, 1948.

The island was also used as the city's landfill. In the 1950s and 1960s wetlands were commonly used for dumps. Filling in marshes was seen as a means of providing a place for garbage and land reclamation. Sand dredged from the channel was used to cover the refuse. By the early 1970s, the federal government's support of such practices was beginning to change. The use of City Island as a landfill ended in August, 1976 when the dump on the island was closed and the Dubuque Metropolitan Landfill west of the city along Highway 20 was opened.

Use of the island for recreation occurred at the same time. Racing through mud may have been fun for many teenagers, but others used the relative flat area for more profitable pursuits. The POWERS AND RILEY RACING TEAM was so successful that the local police blocked off traffic on the island so that the racers could test their latest innovations.

On March 24,1980, the Dubuque City Council renamed City Island in memory of Chaplain Aloysius SCHMITT. The name, Schmitt Island, had been lobbied for by fifty-four civic leaders. Lobbying by the Chaplain Schmitt Park Committee began soon after the announcement that the city planned a softball-baseball complex on the island where a memorial to Schmitt stood.

In 2010 the land is the site of the MILLER RIVERVIEW PARK, DUBUQUE GREYHOUND PARK AND CASINO,MCALEECE SPORTS COMPLEX, VETERANS MEMORIAL PLAZA, and the MYSTIQUE ICE CENTER. In 2010 Dubuque City Manager Michael VAN MILLIGEN estimated that businesses on the island generate an estimated $7 million to $8 million in revenue for the city.