Colonel Davenport House

03/23/2025

It's the first day of spring! Navigation season has just begun again too and there's no better place to check out a barge locking through than the Mississippi River Visitor Center next to Locks and Dam 15 in Rock Island, Illinois. The MRVC is open year-round Wednesday-Saturday: 9 a.m.-4 p.m.

If you haven't visited the Rock Island Arsenal in a while, click here for information on how to obtain your visitor pass: https://home.army.mil/ria/about/visitor-information

03/23/2025

Before 1765 all of the European settlements in the Mississippi and Missouri Valleys were French.

The founding of Kansas City is attributed to men, but the role of women in the city’s early development is often overlooked.

Kathy Krause, professor emerita of French at UMKC, examines how the French-speaking women transformed the land at the confluence of the Kaw and Missouri rivers into a vibrant francophone community.

📍: Central Library
📅: March 30 | 2 p.m.
🎟️: https://tinyurl.com/2ehbd24s

03/19/2025

"MESKWAKI GIRL: c. 1955“Iowa’s only federally recognized Indian tribe, the Sac & Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa, is known as the Meskwaki Nation, or the “People of the Red Earth.” Our settlement is located near Tama, Iowa, and is comprised of more than 8,624 acres. We have more than 1,450 enrolled tribal members, plus more than 1230 Meskwaki descendants, and we’re the largest employer in Tama County, employing over 1,100 people. Through preservation, improved community services, and business opportunities, the people of the Meskwaki Nation are committed to protecting our inherent sovereignty, preserving and promoting our culture, and improving the quality of life for future generations.”Courtesy ~ MeskwakiNation
History is not there for you to like or dislike. It is there for you to learn from it. And if it offends you, even better. Because then you are less likely to repeat it. It's not yours for you to erase or destroy"
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03/18/2025

After the flood of 1881 rerouted the river channel, Kaskaskia became the only community in Illinois located on the west side of the Mississippi.

03/18/2025

Black Hawk wampum "belt" which he sent to Chief Alexander Robinson in 1831. Chicago Historical Society. Photo by John Hauberg 1920, courtesy Augustana Special Collections. Alexander Robinson was a Metis trader and interpreter like Antoine LeClaire. His father was Scottish, and his mother was Ottawa. Sending wampum belts was a diplomatic gesture, and if accepted the belt would become a symbolic record of an alliance made between the two parties. Black Hawk was trying to secure allies in 1831, but Robinson was one of the "peace chiefs" like Shabbona and Waubansee who declined to help the Sauk. Robinson was prominent in the early days of Chicago.

03/17/2025

Antoine LeClaire's 1826 Trade Ledger (Augustana College Special Collections)

03/17/2025

Near the meeting point of the Mississippi, Missouri, and Illinois rivers about eight miles east of St. Louis in the U.S., where the land is fertile and the waters run slow, once stood one of the grand cities of the ancient world. It was called Cahokia. At its peak between 1050 and 1200 AD, the city was the largest and most sophisticated in the territory that's now the U.S. While estimates vary, about twenty thousand people called Cahokia home. For some context, that was about the same size as London then and would only be surpassed by a city in modern-day U.S. borders by Philadelphia in the mid-18th century.

Many mysteries and questions remain about Cahokia. But the prevailing belief is that the city evolved from small settlements of Native Americans who populated the region around the 8th century AD. These small settlements turned into a thriving metropolis likely in part due to the fertile floodplains rich with resources that drew people in to settle, farm, and trade. Researchers have also posited theories that another contributing factor was the city becoming a hub for religious practice.

Whatever the reasons, Cahokia grew into a planned city with neighborhoods, markets, ceremonial grounds, and a bustling central plaza. Its area covered between six and nine square miles, with more than 120 earthen mounds that served as platforms for temples, leaders' homes, burial sites, and celestial observatories. The largest of these, Monks Mound, remains an astonishing feat of human effort. Standing nearly 100 feet tall with a base larger than the Great Pyramid of Giza, it was constructed by moving an estimated 22 million cubic feet of earth, one basket at a time.

However, by the 13th century, Cahokia began to decline. The causes of its fall are still debated among historians and archaeologists. Some believe that as the forests were cleared for firewood and construction, erosion could have degraded the fertile land that sustained the population. Some argue that it was climate changes, including prolonged droughts, that may have disrupted food production. Other reasons include internal strife further strained the city.

Today, Cahokia is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

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03/16/2025

Geroge Davenport's 1827 Trade Ledger (from the Augustana College Special Collections Library)

03/15/2025

03/12/2025

Kaskaskia 1832. Bigger than Chicago. First capital of Illinois (1818-1820).

03/12/2025

Chicago in 1833. The same year the Davenport house was built.

Chicago in 1833 was just a small village lying principally on the right bank of the river above Fort Dearborn. Consisting of about fifty clapboard houses, five or six hotel keepers, a doctor or two, two or three lawyers, a land agent and a few storekeepers and merchants looking to profit off the influx of new residents. The condition of the streets at this time were described in a letter written to the Chicago Tribune fifty-four years later by a retired schoolteacher. Here is an excerpt:

"The streets of the village in the fall soon became deluged with mud. It lay in many places half a leg deep, up to the hubs of the carts and wagons, in the middle of the streets, and the only sidewalk we had was a single plank stretched from one building to another. The smaller scholars I used to bring to school and take home on my back, not daring to trust them on the slippery plank. One day I made a misstep and went down into the thick mire with a little one in my arms. With difficulty I regained my foothold, with both overshoes sucked off by this thick, slimy mud, which I never recovered. - G. Sproat June, 1887"

03/11/2025

Members of the Ilinois Confederacy sought the protection of the French at Fort De Chartres after decades of attacks by the Meskwaki and other tribes migrating from the Great Lakes region into the Illinois Country.

03/09/2025

The Tamaroa and Cahokia tribes were part of the loosely defined Illinois Confederacy (Illiniwek or Illini), allies of France who occupied this area before they were weakened by Iroquois raids and pushed south and west by other tribes, notably the Sauk and Meskwaki, tribes that France had tried to eradicate during the Fox Wars in the early 1700s.

03/09/2025

In honor of Women’s History Month, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and Lincoln’s New Salem State Historic Site invite visitors to a special program entitled, “Pioneer Women of New Salem” on Saturday, March 15th at 11:00 a.m. This program is a guided walk through the historic village with one of our historic site interpreters. Visitors will learn about the women who lived in and around New Salem including Parthena Hill, the Rutledges, Hannah Armstrong, and Granny Spears. Stories that will be shared by the interpreter will highlight what we know about the various women that were a part of the New Salem Community, as well as the influence and help that they provided to a young Abraham Lincoln in the 1830s.

Visitors will meet at the Visitor Center at 11:00 a.m. before being guided through the historic village. The program will conclude at the Rutledge Tavern, where the interpreter will finish the discussion around a cozy fire. Registration is not required, but encouraged. Advanced registration for this unique program can be made at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1264208213799?aff=oddtdtcreator

03/09/2025

This is a picture of downtown Rock Island circa 1860. We discovered this photo at the Rock Island Historical Society while researching the movie, "Rock Island Civil War Prison: Andersonville of the North?" The Rock Island Union newspaper offices are located in the building in the center of the photo.

03/08/2025

Inkpaduta fled west and was living with Sitting Bull's band when Custer's 7th Cavalry attacked their encampment at Greasy Grass in 1876. Inkpaduta then went to Canada and lived out his life. He never surrendered.