This week in Dubuque
About Dubuque
Long before there was a city, Meskwaki miners worked the lead in these bluffs, and in 1788 a French-Canadian trader named Julien Dubuque won their permission, later confirmed by Spain, to mine it alongside them; he is buried on a cliff south of town, under a round stone tower that looks out over the Mississippi. The settlement that took his name was chartered in 1833, which makes Dubuque the oldest city in Iowa, and it grew on lumber, boatbuilding, brewing and the railroads. Bits of that past still stand: the 1856 Shot Tower, where molten lead once fell through the air to become round shot, and the Town Clock, rebuilt in 1873 after the first one came crashing down. Up the hill, the little Fenelon Place Elevator, first built in 1882 so a banker could ride home for lunch, still hauls riders up a 41-degree slope to a view of three states. Down at the Port of Dubuque, kids can meet river otters, sturgeon and stingrays at the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium, then stroll the nearly mile-long Riverwalk along the water.