Ben Jacobsen

JACOBSEN

Posted By: Ken Wright (email)
Date: 11/24/2012 at 09:30:25

Maquoketa, Iowa, December 14, 1974

AT 93 HE'LL RUN AGAIN

Ninety-two year old Ben Jacobsen has served seven terms as Maquoketa's mayor, and he says he will be running for an eighth next year when he is ninety-three

Maquoketa, population about 5,700, sprawls over 2,800 acres in east central Iowa.

Jacobsen got his first taste of politics when he was elected to the city council in 1920.

He bowed out in 1924 when he purchased the hardware store he still operates, then got into the thick of things again in 1954 when he was elected mayor at 72. He's tossed his hat in the ring intermittently since then, and his last two year term ended Dec. 31, 1973.

Jacobsen says complaints from citizens today are essentially the same as those of the early 1900's and center on stray cats and dogs and increases in water and electrical rates.
Jacodsen was involved in the formation of the Maquoketa Municipal Light and Power Company in 1919.

He says if he wins another term as mayor next year he will "give the city light plant back to the people. We don't have to raise the rates all the time."

Another campaign promise is to abolish the "blooming parking meters." He said farmers of an earlier era never complained when they had to pay 10 cents to park a horse and buggy in a local feed barn.

One reason Jacobsen isn't in office today may be his friendship with Mayor Edward Myatt, 71, a retired farmer whom Jacobsen supported in the November 1973 election. "We wouldn't run against each other," says Myatt, who adds that he won't oppose Jacobsen next year.

Ben Jacobsen grave
 

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