22 minute read
The Quad Cities
This bi-state family of communities on the Mississippi packs quite a punch of Midwestern spirit.
Story and Photographs by KRIS GRANT
It’s quite unusual for a Destination Marketing Organization to cover two states, but there’s nothing usual about the Quad Cities, or, as the locals call it, QC.
Here you’ll find a number of cities and communities that are centered on the mighty Mississippi River The big four of the QC are Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa and Rock Island and Moline, Illinois.
Now add in the QC suburbs, each with a distinct character and visitor highlights. They include the Iowa communities of Eldridge, Buffalo, Riverdale and LeClaire, and way out to Walcott and its famous truck stop and truck museum to the west. Across the Mississippi, Illinois QC communities include East Moline, Andalusia, Carbon Cliff, Hampton, Geneseo, Aledo, Milan, Rapids City, Coal Valley, Colona and Cordova.
All told, about 500,000 people live in the QC, supported by a strong industrial base that includes the Army and John Deere.
The QC is a region of America that is packed with innovation, beginning with manufacturing and extending to culinary offerings and cultural offerings. At the same time, the QC is filled with hardworking, salt-o-the-earth residents, who hold dear their cultural roots.
Let’s start exploring!
Moline and John Deere
It was the John Deere Company that piqued my interest in visiting the QC. When you do as much driving across the U.S. as I’ve done over the past decade, you see a lot of those green tractors and combines and lawn mowers. John Deere Company is about as American as apple pie, ranked #84 on the Forbes 100 list.
Up to this point, their equipment has been made mostly in the United States – in Moline, Illinois, Waterloo and Ottumwa, Iowa, and also in Georgia and Louisiana. Since Deere equipment is now a global enterprise, some is manufactured in Germany. Deere is now building a factory in China, and announced in June that due to a tight labor market in the U.S., will move its cab production from its cab and tractor manufacturing center in Waterloo to Ramos, Mexico.
But let’s back way up. Who was John Deere? Deere was born in Rutland, Vermont in 1804. His father, William, was a tailor who had moved to Vermont from Canada, and married a seamstress, Sarah Yates. The Deeres had six children, John, being the youngest. Two years after John was born, the couple moved from Rutland to Middlebury, Vermont, where they established a more successful tailoring shop. But then a letter arrived from England, alluding to a possible inheritance and William left to claim it. He never returned and no one ever learned his fate. There is no record of him landing and perhaps the ship was lost at sea, or was subject to piracy. How sad is that?
Sarah and her family struggled and John began four-year apprenticeship program in blacksmithing at age 17. A year later he was hired to do all the fittings for a sawmill and linseed oil mill in Colchester Falls, Vermont. Deere married in 1827 and soon had a growing family and not enough income to support it. Efforts to start his own
firm were doomed first by fire and a lackluster economy that foreshadowed the Panic of 1837. Deere was arrested by a Leicester deputy sheriff on Nov. 7, 1936. After bailing himself out of jail, he discovered that there was a lien on his property. With debtor’s prison being a real possibility in short order, he sold his shop to his father-in-law for $200, and left his four children and pregnant wife to make his way West, promising he could call for them to come when he had established himself. What helped his success was the invention of a self-cleaning “plough” that could cut through the thick black soil of Illinois and not stick to the plow.
He established a successful blacksmith shop, built a house and moved the family out the next year. By 1843, he was selling 100 plows a year.
Grand Detour was the western edge of “civilization” when Deere set up shop in Grand Detour, and his customers were the farmers of Illinois. His reputation and that of his magic plow spread fast. And in 1848, Deere made a huge decision to move to Moline, trading in the small Rock River for the mighty Mississippi.
Today, John Deere’s corporate headquarters remains in Moline and you can visit the world that Deere created at the John Deere Pavilion. Interestingly, John never lived long enough to see a tractor, but his children, especially his second son Charles, certainly did.
John Deere’s first son, Francis Albert, died suddenly at the age of 18 in the flu pandemic of 1848 and his thirdborn son died at age two. Charles, the only surviving son of the Deere’s nine children, led the company after John’s death.
Armed with his business school education, Charles established a network of independent manager-operated sales branches (a precursor of today’s franchising system) and printed catalogues of all the company’s products. Charles had brought his son-in-law, William Butterworth, into the business, as treasurer, and upon Charles’s death in 1907, William became general manager. He would lead the company for the next 29 years, expanding it into the tractor business.
Charles also built a home in a Swiss-villa style in the hills overlooking his plant and the Mississippi River, which he aptly named “Overlook.” You can tour this home today, as well as the nearby Deere-Wiman home in the Overlook Historic District of Moline. Both sites are operated by the William Butterworth Foundation.
Today, in addition to a full line of agricultural equipment, Deere also produces a variety of industrial construction equipment, as well as lawn and garden tractors and tools for the homeowner. Although the industrial equipment is painted yellow, all of the rest wears the iconic John Deere green with yellow wheels, a color scheme that is recognized throughout the world. At the Pavilion, adults and kids can climb into the cabs of tractors and combines or pose for photos inside wheels or in the giant blade of a bulldozer. Factory tours are no longer offered, even up in Waterloo, but knowledgeable docents can answer all your questions, and sell you a $1.3 million combine if you are so inclined. Or, for less extravagant purposes, you can hop across the commons to the John Deere store. It’s pretty tempting and I was caught up in the John Deere spirit, sending my favorite two-year-old a tractor and matching pajamas. His folks can blame me if he grows up to be a farmer.
I had a pleasant stay at the Wyndham Hotel in Moline; it’s right across the street from the John Deere Pavilion. I can heartily recommend two super good restaurants in Moline. The historic Lagomarcino’s has been making sandwiches and ice cream fountain treats and hand-boxed chocolates since 1908.
To my surprise, in the QC I found one of the best Thai restaurants I’ve run across anywhere -- the Lemongrass Café. If I lived in Moline, I’d eat there weekly: one week I’d order the spicy green curry with bamboo, chicken breast, green beans, lime leaves, basil and jasmine rice; the next week, pineapple fried rice with egg, raisins, cashews and pineapple; the next week, coconut soup with shrimp, mushrooms, galangal, lime leaf, scallion and cilantro in a coconut broth. Lemongrass also offers a full bar, not something you usually find at Thai restaurants.
Davenport, Iowa
On my first visit to Davenport in June, I stayed at the famous Hotel Blackhawk, named after the Sauk leader and warrior who lived in what is now the Midwestern United States. Blackhawk was not a hereditary chief, but earned his status as a war chief or captain by his actions. During the War of 1812, Black Hawk fought on the side of the British against the U.S. in the hope of pushing American settlers away from Sauk territory. Later, he led a band of Sauk and Fox warriors against white settlers in Illinois and Wisconsin during the 1832 Black Hawk War. After the war, he was captured by U.S. forces and taken to the Eastern U.S. where he and other war leaders were taken on a tour of several cities.
Hotel Blackhawk has been host to several high-profile people including Presidents Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon and Barack Obama. In 1915, the first seven floors (225 rooms) of the "New Fireproof Hotel Blackhawk" were completed. From the 1970s through the early 2000s, the hotel passed into several ownerships and gradually deteriorated and was then taken over by the City of Davenport. In October 2008, it entered into an agreement with Restoration St. Louis, Inc., which announced a $46 million restoration. The restoration renewed the Italian Renaissance and Art Deco design elements, added a new entrance, a restored grand lobby, swimming pool and fitness center and modern bowling alley in the basement. The hotel reopened Dec. 15, 2010 and in 2013 it became a Marriott Autograph Collection Property. It is a AAA four-diamond property.
I enjoyed dinner at the Half Nelson in the historic Motor Row and Industrial District of Davenport. Just a block away from Hotel Blackhawk, Motor Row was named to the National Register of Historic Place in 2019. The area is truly undergoing a renaissance: just across the street from the Half Nelson, the Mississippi River Distilling Company, headquartered in the Quad City suburb of LeClaire, has set up its “downtown lounge” operations in a former Buick dealership.
Next door to the Half Nelson, a movie theatre was in the final stages of construction when I visited the QC a second time last month; its website is already recruiting staffers.
To be called “The Last Picture House,” the two-screen theatre will blend first-run films, arthouse, family, cult and classic cinema programming. The 8,700-square-foot complex will also feature a social lounge, cocktail bar and rooftop screening venue and offer exclusive entertainment events.
This ambitious undertaking is the product of QC natives and successful screenwriters, Scott Beck & Bryan Woods, the co-owners and writers/ creators of A Quiet Place with local developers Pete Stopulos and Jens Baker. A $600,000 state grant is aiding in the development of the theatre, which incorporates the best ideas that Beck and Woods had seen at theaters in their worldwide travels.
By the way, the film, A Quiet Place, starring John Krasinsky and Emily Blunt, frightened me to the core!
The Last Picture House will blend firstrun, arthouse, family, cult, and classic cinema programming with a social lounge, cocktail bar, rooftop screening venue, and exclusive entertainment events. It’s scheduled for completion by the end of the year, reason enough to visit the QC yet again.
Davenport’s Figge Museum began operations in 1925 as the Davenport Municipal Art Gallery, following the passage of a law that allowed the city to accept a gift of 330 artworks owned by a former mayor, Charles A. Ficke. The museum opened its new all-glass building in 2005, which was named The Figge in honor of a major gift from the V.O. and Elizabeth Kahl Figge Foundation. Ficke’s collection of European, American and Spanish Viceregal art has grown over the years through donations of philanthropists and civic leaders. It now includes the Grant Wood Archive, which was my favorite part of the collection, and works by other American Regionalist artists, as well as an extensive collection of Haitian art and contemporary collections. Another museum that I found most intriguing was to the German-American Heritage Center, occupying a building that was once the hotel housing many German immigrants who made their way up the Mississippi from New Orleans, the port that was often the gateway to America for many German immigrants of the mid-19th century. That’s because shipping companies made the most of their American passages: immigrants came in, and cotton went out at this port! I learned much about German immigration but also U.S. immigration policy and how it has changed over the decades. Well worth a visit!
Rock Island
The Rock Island Arsenal is an active U.S. Army facility, headquarters of the First Army, and is the largest government-owned manufacturing facility in the United States. It is located on a 946-acre island on the Mississippi River between the Quad Cities of Davenport, Iowa, and Rock Island and Moline, Illinois.
The Arsenal houses the Joint Manufacturing and Technology Center (JMTC), the Department of Defense’s only vertically integrated manufacturing operation. It also includes the U.S. Army Joint Munitions Command, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Rock Island District, United States Army Sustainment Command.
Not surprisingly, the Arsenal is one of the largest employers in the Quad Cities, supporting upwards of 54,000 active and reserve units, retired military, civilian employees, and family members within a 150-mile radius.
In 1969, the arsenal was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, and in 1989, the original arsenal buildings were designated a National Historic Landmark.
You may wish to tour the Rock Island Arsenal Museum and the Colonel Davenport House. But be advised that as an active military base, visitor entry requirements are strict. You’ll need to enter at the Moline gate and stop at the Visitor Control Center, at 23 Prospect Drive. There you’ll present a valid drivers license, state ID or U.S. passport and go through a quick criminal background check.
George Davenport traveled with an army expedition in 1816 to establish a frontier military outpost on the Mississippi River. That became the original Fort Armstrong that was built on this Island, part of a system of forts in the Upper Mississippi River Valley. Davenport traveled out to meet with Indians, who considered him jovial, friendly and generous, and began trading furs with them, leading to his career as a successful merchant. Chief Black Hawk and Davenport occasionally visited one another’s homes and Black Hawk is said to have found a humanity in Davenport
After a rainstorm on Saturday night, it was back to the drawing board for several artists.
that was missing in other military officers. The fort's most important role was keeping the peace when it served as military headquarters during the Black Hawk War of 1832.
Davenport was a fascinating character. Born in England, he eventually
made his way to America, after being imprisoned on a previous trip in Russia. He joined the U.S. Army and became a prominent settler in the Iowa Territories, particularly Rock Island and the city that was eventually named in his honor, Davenport.
While in Rock Island last summer, I attended a two-day chalk art festival, a popular annual competition for professional artists as well as students. Their paintings were quite excellent. Alas, rain was in the forecast and so the artists diligently covered their half-completed works with tarps and heavy-duty tape. But this was quite a cloud-buster and the next morning, when they uncovered their drawings, most were damaged or at least muddied. But with a can-do Midwest spirit, they began the repair work and by the end of the day, with nary a cloud in the sky, the works shined as brightly as the artists’ faces.
LeClaire, Cody Road and Buffalo Bill
One of my favorite QC destinations was LeClaire. Its favorite son was William F. Cody – Buffalo Bill -- born here Feb. 26, 1846. It’s a charming town on the banks of the Mighty Mississippi, filled with shops you won’t find anywhere else.
Here, you’ll find the Buffalo Bill Museum, which documents Cody’s life, and also houses the last working wooden paddlewheel tugboat on the Mississippi River — the Lone Star. Guests are encouraged to board the Lone Star, climb the decks, and see where the crew lived and worked.
Riverboat pilots were prominent early citizens who helped settle LeClaire, and many of their homes have been preserved throughout the town. During the latter half of the 19th century, Mississippi riverboat pilots often engaged local pilots to guide their steamships around the treacherous Rock Island Rapids between LeClaire and Davenport. It's the only spot on the Mississippi River where the waters run east to west.
The museum features a special exhibit on Philip Suiter, the city’s first riverboat pilot who was trained by French-Indian voyagers to navigate the dangerous rapids downriver from LeClaire.
In keeping with the QC’s reputation for innovation, another LeClaire native of note featured in the museum is James J. Ryan II (1903 – 1953, quite a short life). A 1920 graduate of LeClaire High School, he later attended Iowa State University and taught at the University of Minnesota. As a professor, he tested automobile safety equipment, ranging from a hydraulic bumper to seat belt designs. He is most famous as the inventor of the Ryan Flight Recorder, which was the first “Black Box” to be used in air flight recording. But the star of the show at the museum was Buffalo Bill. In fact, LeClaire’s main street is named
Cody Road, as is the fabulous line of Cody Road whiskeys featured at the Mississippi River Distilling Company. I love, love this distillery, owned by QC brothers Ryan and Garrett Burchett, which features grains that are all grown within 25 miles of LeClaire. Every bottle is handlabeled with the batch and bottle number. You can then go to their website, enter your batch and bottle number and learn about the farmers who grew the grains! I brought home six bottles of these sweet and smooth spirits. Mississippi River Distilling Company doesn’t export to California, so that’s another reason you must travel here, preferably by car, so you too can bring home a case!
But, again, I digress; my apologies to Buffalo Bill. Let me tell you about this legend.
Born in LeClaire, William moved with his family to Leavenworth, Kansas. His father died when Bill was 11. That’s when young Bill Cody left home to work on a wagon train and as a cattle driver. After crossing the Great Plains several times, he became a fur trapper and for a short time, a California gold miner.
He worked for the Union from 1863 to the end of the Civil War in 1865.
After the Civil War, Buffalo Bill earned his moniker in 1872, working for the U.S. Army as a scout and for shooting buffalo and providing the meat to railroad workers. He then met another scout, Ned Buntline, who created a drama called Scouts of the Prairie, and he, Buntline and another scout, “Texas jack” Omohundro, performed on stage beginning on Dec. 17, 1872 in Chicago. Audiences were enchanted with their tales of the west.
Buntline and Omohundro eventually left the show, but Buffalo Bill continued on, and in 1882 he introduced Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. It was an outdoor spectacle with live buffalo, elk and cattle, and authentic cowboys and cowgirls who demonstrated bronco riding, herding and roping. The show was even invited to entertain Queen Victoria on her Golden Jubilee in 1887.
Buffalo Bill’s relationships with the American Indians evolved over time. As an Army scout, he fought against tribes and reenacted battles as part of his Wild West show. But he also was sympathetic to the Cheyenne and Lakota tribes, whom he felt were entitled to defend their lands. Toward the end of his life, he became an advocate for American Indians’ civil rights.
Coming back into the present, thanks to the local LeClaire visitor center, I was pointed to a unique store, Antique Archeology, the home base for Mike Wolfe, star of the hit History Channel show, American Pickers, whom The New York Times has dubbed “The Jack Kerouac of Junk.”
Wolfe is a LeClaire native, and the main shop is his former fabrication headquarters. Wolfe often visits the store, when he isn’t “picking” on twolane roads throughout the nation. There are now two side-by-side shops here that offer a blend of signature merchandise and Wolfe’s often-rusted finds of the road, such as an antique popcorn popper. Visitors are invited to “make an offer” on the antique items; no such luck on the branded merchandise!
Throughout LeClaire, you’ll see a number of preserved riverboat captain homes, including the circa-1851 Dawley House that is now home to Crane & Pelican restaurant.
Daniel and Sabina Dawley raised nine children in the home. After a 30-year career on the Mississippi, owning and working on boats, Daniel retired to become the Postmaster of LeClaire. Sabina was a prominent Universalist, and citizen of early LeClaire. She hosted events at her home to make bandages for the union soldiers during the Civil War. The home is perched across a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River and boasts its original chandeliers, fireplaces, wide pine plank floors, which creaked ever so gently as they must have for over a century as I made my way to my window seat.
I enjoyed a lovely evening here, featuring delicious “from scratch” cuisine overseen by owner Mandy Harvey. Making the evening complete were the tunes of a jazz duo wafting in from the adjoining room.
World’s Largest Truck Stop and Truck Museum
On Highway 80, on the western outskirts of the Quad Cities, you must not miss the World’s Largest Truck Stop and Truck Museum! It would be hard to miss, as this 300-acre facility is about three times bigger than most truck stops, with signage to match.
Iowa 80 Truckstop began serving truckers out of a small white enamel building in 1964 before Interstate 80 was completely built. Bill Moon, a regional manager for then-owner Standard Oil, located the spot, at what is now Exit 284. Twenty years later, Moon purchased the site from Standard Oil. In addition to a number of fast-food outlets, there’s a wonderful buffet line lunch featuring “homecooked” meals daily at the 300-seat Iowa State Kitchen. After lunch, do a bit of souvenir shopping in this giant of a store, the largest truckers store anywhere. There’s even a dentist and chiropractors office!
Then head to the rear of the property for the star of the show – the Iowa 80 Trucking Museum.
The museum was the dream of Moon, a longtime collector of antique trucks and trucking memorabilia. There are 100 vintage trucks on display, along with 304 petroliani signs and 24 vintage gas pumps. Petroliani, by the way, means collectibles related to the oil industry and gas stations. Some of these old trucks brought back memories of vehicles I saw on the road during the ‘50s and ‘60s. Definitely worth a visit!
IF YOU GO …
Visit Quad Cities
Your official guide to visiting the Quad Cities. Of particular interest, go to “Explore,” then “Our Communities.” www.visitquadcities.com
Hotels
• Axis Hotel by Hilton Tapestry Collection 1630 5th Avenue, Moline www.theaxismoline.com
• Hotel Blackhawk Autograph Collection 200 East Third Street, Davenport www.hotelblackhawk.com
• The Current Iowa Autograph Collection 215 North Main Street, Davenport www.thecurrentiowa.com
• Wyndham Moline on John Deere Commons 1415 River Drive, Moline www.wyndhamhotels.com
Attractions & Museums
• Buffalo Bill Museum
199 Front Street, LeClaire www.buffalobillmuseumleclaire.com
• Butterworth Center & Deere Wiman House 817 11th Street and 1105 8th Street, Moline www.butterwortthcenter.com
• Colonel Davenport House
Davenport Drive, Rock Island coloneldavenport1833@hotmail.com
• Figge Art Museum
225 West Second Street, Davenport www.figgeartmuseum.org
• The Last Picture House
325 East Second Street, Davenport (opening late 2023) www.lastpicturehouse.com
• Iowa 80 Trucking Museum
505 Sterling Drive, Walcott www.iowa80truckingmuseum.com
• John Deere Pavilion and Store
1400 River Drive, Moline www.visitjohndeere.com
• German-American Heritage Center
712 West Second Street Davenport www.gahc.org
Restaurants & Spirits
• The Half Nelson Dinners
Tuesday - Saturday 321 East Second Street, Davenport www.thehalfnelson.com
• The Crane & Pelican Café
Dinners, Tuesday – Saturday; Sunday brunch 127 Second Street South, LeClaire www.craneandpelican.com
• Mississippi River Distilling Company
303 Cody Road, Le Claire 318 East Second Street, Davenport www.mrdistilling.com
• Lagomarcino’s Confectionary 1422 Fifth Street, Moline www.lagomarsinos.com
• Lemongrass Café 1419 Fifth Avenue, Moline www.lemongrasscafeqc.com
• Bent River Brewing Company
Both locations open 365 days a year!
1413 Fifth Avenue, Moline 512 24th Street, Rock Island www.bentriverbrewing.com
• Whitey’s Ice Cream
Seven locations in the QC www.whiteysicecream.com
• Wide River Winery Vineyard and Tasting Room: 1776 East Deer Creek Road, Clinton
Tasting rooms: 106 North Cody Road, LeClaire 1128 Mound Street, Village of East Davenport www.wideriverwinery.com
