the Klan held a gathering which they called a "Konklave." The Klan claimed over 50,000 people attended the rally. The Klan held another "Konklave" as well as a parade. Fortunately, the influence of the Klan soon began to weaken. National scandals and power struggles weakened the Klan, which was mirrored locally. The Klan had pretty much disappeared from the public view for a number of years. Most recently, during the 1990s, there was a brief resurgence of the Klan's presence in Dubuque. Appropriate actions were taken and the Klan's presence has since disappeared. World War II and Aftermath One of the first casualties of the Second World War was Father Aloysius Schmitt. A Roman Catholic priest and Chaplain, the Iowa native had been educated at Loras College in Dubuque, and had served as a pastor at St. Mary's Church in Dubuque. Following the war, Deere and Company built their manufacturing plant on a parcel of land adjoining the Mississippi River north of Dubuque. This plant, which today builds construction equipment became one of the major employers in the Dubuque area. As television gained in popularity, area residents found that the geography of Dubuque made reception of over the air television signals difficult in some parts of the city. In response, a cable television system was developed in Dubuque during the mid-1950s. This made the Dubuque cable system one of the earlier systems to be developed in the country. The development of the Dubuque cable system meant that most homes in the lower lying regions of the city did not have television antennas - which was one of the main reasons why the city was chosen as a location for the movie F.I.S.T.. Without TV antennas, Dubuque at the time looked more like Cleveland of the 1930s than Cleveland did. Today Mediacom runs the Dubuque cable system. The Great Depression Dubuque was also affected by the Great Depression that had affected the rest of the nation. Many people were forced to move into what were called Hoovervilles. The one in Dubuque was in the southern part of the city. The floods The city was the site of several disastrous floods over the years when the Mississippi River went over its banks. Many older residents of Dubuque remember the Flood of 1965 as one of the worst in the city's history. Many areas of downtown Dubuque were under several feet of water,