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Until recent decades, the round rocks - that look like nothing on the outside but hold semi-precious deposits inside - were considered a nuisance to everyone except rock lovers and quartz aficionados. They were kicked up by the truckload in building sites, creating the necessary cost of having to be hauled away.
All this was before Brandenberger began to take notice. After receiving a handful of inquiries about coming to Keokuk to hunt for geodes, the tourism director made a visit to Mike Shumate, a local rock expert who deals in all sorts of rocks, but is especially knowledgeable about geodes. What Brandenberger learned would establish the image of his city as the geode capital of the world. I'm not kidding.
I know all this because Brandenberger is what you might call a "natural" when it comes to tourism directors, a softspoken huckster who is not above luring visitors to his town one or two at a time.
As my husband Bob and I walked into the breakfast room at the Hampton Inn in Keokuk last week on our way home, a man sitting at a table by himself looked up and asked, "Did you sleep well?" He was so genuinely familiar and cordial that I laughed spontaneously.
"Pretty good," I said.
"I'm the local tourism director," he said. "I'm here to check out the free breakfast."
Not one for small talk about whether he slept well or how he liked the French toast or fresh fruit salad, I cut right to the heart of the matter.
"What brings tourists to Keokuk?" I asked.
Brandenberger has had the job of tourism director for 20 years and the city has had a tourism tax for 10 years. The tax generates about $275,000 a year. The tourism bureau gets half the funds to spend luring visitors to the area. The friendly Keokuk booster warmed easily to his subject.
"Eagles, a Civil War re-enactment and geodes," he answered. "Some people are surprised we have eagles this far north, but this is the last place they find open water. Our dam is high and releases water year-round so this is a busy place for eagles," he said.
You might think I would have been tempted to jump at the Civil War re-enactment idea, given Pacific's current project to exploit our town's Civil War history. But the unfamiliar or unusual always captures my imagination.
"What exactly is a geode?" I asked.
"Come down to my office after you finish your breakfast and I'll show you," he said. "If you're headed south, it's on your way."
There are geodes all over the world, but not as many as there are at Keokuk and nowhere except the 35-mile radius of the confluence of the two rivers are there geodes like those containing the quartz crystals and chalcedony deposits that emerge like stalagmites and stalactites reaching toward the center of the geode.
The Keokuk deposits are prolific and unique.
"They're everywhere," Brandenberger told me. "There is a never ending supply."
After talking with Shumate, Brandenberger began to get in touch with geology groups, who, to his surprise, all knew what a geode was. Some already knew about the Keokuk deposit. Five years ago he organized the first annual Geode Fest, advertised the event with U.S. geology groups and made a map of where visitors could find geodes. The turnout was so encouraging that locals took note. Now several enterprising farmers open their land to geode searchers for the weekend. No one goes away disappointed.
"This year we had a couple from Colorado who were looking for a 250-pound geode for their rock garden," Brandenberger said. "We see them that big, but I was skeptical about a search so specific. I sent them out and they found one the first day."
Locals often bring their geodes to Brandenberger's office in the Holiday Inn Express building, located on South Highway 61. A 5-gallon plastic bucket holds a collection of small geodes that locals have dropped in. Larger ones line the floor along the lobby wall.
Brandenberger urges us to pick one as a gift. When I asked him how to open it he carried the soil pipe cutter he keeps at the front door outside, attached a what looked like a bicycle chain around the rock, and opened it.
"Does anyone polish these crystals?" Bob asked. "My daughter Marsha has taken to polishing rocks."
"Here, take her a couple of these," the newly defined geode expert said. Reaching down into the evergreen bed at his office entrance to pick up three small solid geodes that had been sliced in half and were sparkling.
"These are beautiful when they're polished," he said. "The center appears clear as a pool."
Now I have to tell you . . . I did get back to the Civil War re-enactment. As it turns out Brig. Gen. Samuel R. Curtis, the Union officer credited with victory in the Battle of Pea Ridge (Arkansas), moved to Keokuk after the war and served as mayor. For the past 20 years, the town has re-enacted the Arkansas battle every year. In the early years more than a thousand re-enactors showed up. That number has shrunk in recent years, but Brandenberger believes that may change with the Civil War sesquicentennial approaching in 2011-2014.
The tourism department spends $30,000 a year to stage the re-enactment and tracks $1.5 million in hotel, restaurant and fuel purchases for the weekend.
"It really works for us," Brandenberger said.
The Geode Fest is small in comparison. The rock hunters spend between $250,000 and $300,000 on hotels, food and fuel the weekend of the big rock hunt, held the last weekend in September.
There is a lot more to Keokuk than igneous rocks. Mississippi River Lock and Dam 19 is located there. A platform created with the first leg of the old curved bridge that was replaced in 1980 places river watchers directly above the lock. The Historic Illinois town of Nauvoo is 15 minutes away and the eagles are there all winter.
But for conversation starters, you can't beat the geode. It's Iowa's state rock.
Pauline Masson can be reached at paulinemasson@att.net or 636-257-0988.
