Riverside City History
People Who Have Made A Difference: Mayor Ed Rule

While several of Riverside's mayors can take credit for helping build a city from scratch, Ed Rule may have seen some of the most dramatic change in the city's history. Serving as mayor from 1996-2000, Rule presided over the city just as it embarked on several dramatic capital improvement programs, thanks to funding from the Argosy casino.

"Yes, it was dramatic," Rule recalls today. "We certainly had an opportunity to make a bigger impact on this city than has ever been or maybe ever will be. You don't get too many opportunities to build city halls or city parks. For a city our size - about 3,300 people - that's a lot of capital improvements."

Rule said previous Boards of Aldermen should be credited, as well as Mayors before and after his two terms. "We've set the stage," he said. "The board and mayor now are preparing for the next big leap—that's the levee." "The levee" is the Riverside-Quindaro project that was completed in 2005. Rule noted that the levee was an extremely long-term project. "The mayor's before me have worked on that for 50 years trying to get that done," he said. "The city has a lot invested in that project, but they'll more than get their money back."

Rule also saw the city's use of funding from the Argosy casino have a major impact. "The riverboat and its income has been a tremendous factor," he said. "I look for really great things to happen in our city. I've always been a big supporter of this city and always will be."

Although he's a "newcomer" to the community, having only moved here 30 years ago, Rule also has a long-time connection with Riverside; his grandfather-in-law is the late Ferd Filger, first mayor of the community. "He was a wonderful man," Rule said. "I never heard him say one bad thing about any person."

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