City of Moline, Illinois

City of Moline, Illinois

Appropriate, indeed, is the above quoted appellation to the City of Moline, for nowhere between Chicago, east, and San Francisco, west, nor between St. Paul, north, and St. Louis, south, is there a city which can so fittingly disport the magnitude of her industries and her products, or demonstrate more rapid growth. Why Moline has been enabled to win so many manufacturing establishments in the industrial field is merely a matter of supposition-either because of’ the utility of the water power, or that the thrifty hands and fertile brains which established them considered her future more promising during their days of early struggle. Moline is an industrial city, pure and simple. Her shops are numbered among the largest of their kind extant. The Moline Wagon Company being admittedly the largest wagon shop in the world, while Deere and Company and the Moline Plow Company consume more raw steel than any other plow shop in existence. A potent factor in the growth of Moline undoubtedly hinges upon the enormity and utility of the water power which her manufacturers, with the assistance of the Government, have brought to such a high state of availability and within easy reach. Just recently the Government has expended an immense sum in harnessing that portion of the Mississippi which flows by Moline so that the Arsenal, as well as private enterprises, might profit by securing motive power at a more nominal figure than it has heretofore been possible to do. Second Avenue, in Moline, reminds a stranger more of the manufacturing sections of Pittsburg or Milwaukee than the industries of a town her size; but when the impressive dimensions of the Moline Plow Company, Deere and Company, The Moline Wagon Company, Deere and Mansur Company, The Steel Mills, Velie Carriage Company, The Moline Furniture Works. Williams and White Company, The Organ Works, Barnard and .Leas, The Moline Pump Company, Cooper Saddlers Harness. Company, The Moline Incandescent Light Company, and the scores of other lesser establishments, are contemplated, this fact does not appear so strange. Over 7,000 men are employed in Moline in her numerous shops, while East Moline and Silvis employ half that many more. At Silvis are located the Rock Island shops. the largest car shops in the world. The output of Moline consists of every character of farm implements, gasoline engines, heavy drop and forging machinery, wagons, carriages, steam engines, wood-working machinery, flour mill machinery, pumps, organs, malleable iron castings, steel billets, furniture, scales, harness fixtures, wheels, and a score of other much used and nationally known articles. The same railroads which enter Reek Island-the Rock Island Route, the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul, the Davenport, Rock Island and Northwestern-also- penetrate Moline, and have accommodated the manufacturers with spurs of tracks for switching and side tracks that represent an enormous saving in handling cars. Her lodges and buildings, public and private, her library, hospitals, church edifices and schools easily compare with any city in the middle west. In Moline proper nearly $30,000,000 are invested, and the average annual output is given at $12,500,000. The town has fifty-six miles of well kept streets, thirty-two miles of sidewalks. twenty miles of sewers, twenty-five miles of water mains, fifteen miles of paved streets, and her population is nearly 22,000, and of that rugged, thrifty class which characterize so many of our manufacturing districts.

•  Events Of Early Days
•  Moline Post Office
•  Moline Fire Department
•  Moline Water Works Department
•  Moline Public Schools
•  Moline Public Library
•  Moline City Hospital
•  Moline Health Department
•  Riverside Cemetery
•  Moline Manufacturers
  • Moline Plow Company
  • Moline Wagon Company
  • The Velie Carriage Company
  • Mutual Wheel Company
  • The Wright Carriage Body Company
  • Moline Furniture Works
  • Deere & Company
  • Argillo Works
•  Tri-City Manufacturers’ Association Of The Cities Of Davenport, Rock Island And Moline
•  The Moline Business Men’s Association
•  Moline Retail Merchants’ Association
•  Moline Club
•  Woman’s Club Of Moline
•  The Moline Young Men’s Christian Association
•  Churches Of Moline
  • First Congregational Church
  • The Swedish Methodist Episcopal Church
  • Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Church
  • First Baptist Church
  • St. Anthony’s (Roman Catholic) Church
  • St. Mary’s Catholic Church
  • The First Swedish Baptist Church
  • The Second Methodist Episcopal Church
  • Second Congregational Church
  • Christ Church
  • The Plymouth Congregational Church, East Moline, Illinois
  • Sacred Heart Belgian Catholic Church

Township Organization 

Source: Historic Rock Island County, pub. Kramer & Company, Rock Island, Illinois, 1908