What Cheer, IA

What Cheer is a city in Keokuk County, Iowa, United States. The 1890 census counted 3,246, residents. What Cheer is a former coal town, and from the 1870s to the early 1900s was one of the major coal-producing centers of Iowa. Robert Forsyth, born in Kilmarnock, Scotland, came to America in 1857, and made his way to Rock Island, Illinois, where he arrived penniless. That mix gives What Cheer a clear local shape within Iowa, with older layers still visible in current places.

ATTRTony Webster from Portland, Oregon / CC BY-SA 2.0

The local scoop is a place whose streets, landmarks, and institutions keep its earlier story close to the present. He worked for most of a decade as a coal miner before coming to Petersburg, the future What Cheer. The central business district and the larger part of the town is located on the north-east bank of Coal Creek, a tributary of the North fork of the Skunk River. What Cheer is home to three firms making mining drills, Walker & Thompson, Enterprise Manufacturing.