Rock Island

Natural Scenic Beauty The variety in the topography of Rock Island County has made possible scenery of commanding beauty. Early voyagers were impressed with the charm of situation of Rock Island, the splendid island surrounded by the bright waters of the Mississippi and bounded by the outlying bluffs like unto a spacious amphitheatre changing with the seasons from the charm of green clad eminence to russet autumn foliage splashed with vermilion tints and then to snow-clad winter hills. Many chapters have been written of this section. One extract will be sufficient to give an idea of all. Governor Reynolds in … Read more

The Moline Young Men’s Christian Association The Moline Young Men’s Christian Association was organized February 10, 1885. At that time the old rink was secured as temporary quarters and an efficient work carried on for several years. During the years of 1888 and 1889 a building fund was raised and a new structure erected which continued to be the home of the Association until destroyed some years later by fire. On January 1, 1903, the Association moved into the present quarters, where a steadily growing work has been maintained in the various departments, and whose spacious. well lighted rooms have … Read more

Mutual Wheel Company The Mutual Wheel Company, Moline, Illinois, was organized in 1891 and commenced operations on the present site about the first of January, 1 892. The original capital in-vested by the stockholders was about $40,000, and about fifty men were at first employed. Mr. D. M. Sechler, founder of the D. M. Sechler Carriage Company, was the first president of this company, and Morris Rosen-field was the first vice-president. The business of the company has increased very rapidly until at. the present time the factory is one of the largest in the United States in this line. The … Read more

Moline Water Works Department The City of Moline has an unusually good water works system (the supply coming from the Mississippi River), consisting of a pumping station and filtering plant, and thirty-five miles of street water mains, with three hundred and twenty-five city fire hydrants, fifty private hydrants, and two hundred and. forty-five valves. The number of gallons of water filtered during the year ending April 1, 1908, amounted to 988,419,230 gallons, or 2,700,598 gallons per day. The total number of gallons of water pumped to the City of Moline for the said year was 949,711,378 gallons, being a daily … Read more

Moline Retail Merchants’ Association This association, like the Retail Merchants’ Association of Rock Island, affiliates with both the National and State organizations. Like other bodies of its kind its objects are to advance and protect the business interests of its members, to abate trade abuses and illegitimate practices, to secure beneficial legislation, and in various ways produce a feeling of friendliness and co-operation between the varied business interests and the public as a whole. This association was instituted April 1, 1903. It is now incorporated. The first workers in the movement looking to the perfection of this organization were: B. … Read more

Moline Wagon Company The Moline Wagon Company is indisputably the largest firm in the world devoted exclusively to the making of wagons. From a nucleus which embodied but a repair and wagon shop which was capable of producing but one hundred wagons annually, this company, under the masterly hand and prolific judgment of its legitimate founder, Mr. Morris Rosenfield, succeeded with a rapidity unheard of, and forged to the front rank of industrial enterprises not only in Moline, but in the United States. In the mere shack in the eastern end of Moline, where James First trudged over the forge … Read more

Moline Public Library Next to the public schools of Moline as a popular educative agency, is the Carnegie Public Library and reading rooms. Indeed this latter institution, in the design of its founders, is intended to carry up education to a higher plane than that reached by the public schools, and to lead to a broader and more comprehensive intellectual culture. To this end, its plan comprehends not merely a collection of books, newspapers and magazines, but also an art gallery, a place of amusement and social conversation, a collection of rare curiosities and cabinets of natural history and the … Read more

Moline Public Schools The first school house in Moline was built in 1843 on the north west corner of Sixteenth Street and Fourth Avenue, where the Burling-ton freight house now stands. “The people of the new town,” says an old settler, “felt the need of a school, and of some place in which to hold religious meetings.” Accordingly the owners of the town site donated two lots; a subscription was circulated and a brick school house built, which was for several years used also as a place of worship by different denominations. The first teacher, who also served as city … Read more

Moline Plow Company The business that eventually grew into the Moline Plow Company was originally started by Henry Candee and R. K. Swan. Associated with them were Mr. L. E. Hemenway, J. B. Wyckoff and others. They manufactured successfully fanning mills and hay-racks, in a wooden building located on the present site of the magnificent plant of the Moline Plow Company. This business was started in 1865, and shortly after Andrew Friburg associated himself with the company, and the manufacture of plows was taken up. In 1866 Mr. George Stephens added enough capital to the business to make him an … Read more

Moline Post Office The Moline post office was established in 1844, with David B. Sears as the first post-master. The office was located in the ” Brick Store ” (a building owned by Mr. Sears, between Fifteenth and Sixteenth Streets on Second Avenue.) Following him Dr. Wells had the office in a little room about twelve by sixteen feet on the alley corner of Seventeenth Street between First and Second Avenues. George W. Bell succeeded Wells and moved the office south , to the corner where he had a tailor shop. Joseph J. Jackman was the next postmaster, and he … Read more