Rock Island, Illinois

20 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1891 and the latest in 1993. It stands in Rock Island Township. It lies in ZIP code area 61201. It stands on Sylvan Slough. The Survey maps it on the Davenport East quadrangle. 37,108 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 604 feet above sea level.

Rock Island within Rock Island County

On record in Rock Island

Buildings and businesses the archive holds for this place. Each opens its own page, with the source record it came from.

On the National Register 12 of 22 shown

Rock Island ArsenalNational Historic Landmark · listed 1969
Best Buildinglisted 2018
Black Hawk Museum and Lodgelisted 1985
Broadway Historic Districtlisted 1998
Chippiannock Cemeterylisted 1994
Connor Houselisted 1988
Denkmann-Hauberg Houselisted 1972
Fort Armstrong Hotellisted 1984
Fort Armstrong Theatrelisted 1980
Lincoln Schoollisted 1985
Lock and Dam No. 15 Historic Districtlisted 2004
Old Main, Augustana Collegelisted 1975

Every listing in Rock Island County

Population over time

2 figures

Rock Island fell from 39,018 to 37,108 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.

Year	People	Change
2010	39,018
2020	37,108	-1,910 (-5%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

12 surveys from 20 printed sheets

Matched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.

1891 USGS Davenport quadrangle1:62500
1894 USGS Davenport quadrangle1:62500, 4 printings
1901 USGS Rock Island quadrangle1:125000, 2 printings
1910 USGS Rock Island quadrangle1:125000
1949 USGS Davenport quadrangle1:24000
1953 USGS Davenport East quadrangle1:24000, 3 printings
1958 USGS Davenport quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
1961 USGS Davenport quadrangle1:250000
1962 USGS Davenport quadrangle1:250000
1984 USGS Davenport quadrangle1:100000, 2 printings
1991 USGS Davenport East quadrangle1:24000
1993 USGS Davenport East quadrangle1:24000

In the county-history sources

19,359 words on this township

Historic Rock Island County; History of the Settlement of Rock Island County from the Earliest Known Period to the Present Time ... Embracing References of Importance, and Including a Biography of Rock Island County's Well-known Citizens, published 1908 names this settlement in its chapter on Rock Island Township. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

A history of the towns of Rock Island and Moline would apparently be similar and coincident to the history of the cities of Rock Island and Moline, the two towns being the corporate limits of the two cities. The date of the formation of these two townships is noted in Township Organization.

Passage source: Historic Rock Island County; History of the Settlement of Rock Island County from the Earliest Known Period to the Present Time ... Embracing References of Importance, and Including a Biography of Rock Island County's Well-known Citizens, published 1908.

The City of Rock Island was preceded by the Town of Farnhamsburg. the first settlement on this side of the river within the ])resent City limits. Here the first house was built by Colonel Davenport and Russell Farnham. partners in the Indian trade, in 1826. It stood near the landing from old Fort Armstrong, about a block south of the southern approach to the present railroad bridge over Sylvan Water, and on an elevated lime stone knoll. The county road from the east ran in front of it. and turned from the Moline road to the west of the Lemuel Andrews residence - now Honorable Ben T. Cable's residence - and down along where is now the Hurlington and ^lilwaukee Railroad tracks, until it reached Twenty-fom-th Street, where it met old Illinois Street, now Second Avenue. The house was a noted place in the early history of Rock Island County. Here the County Covernment was formed, the first elections held, and the first postoffice established; it was the seat of the Circuit and County Courts from 1833 to 1835. In the latter year, this original seat of justice of the county was sui^erseded by the Town of Stephenson, and a laid out in what is now the lower ])art of the City of Rock Lsland. It was laid out by the commissioners authorized by the Legislature to establish the seat of justice for Rock Island County, anil contained the old county grounds, with a ])ortion of the county buildings. There are still standing many of the earlier buildings erected by the pioneers and here were inaugurated man}' of the first institutions of Rock Island. Stephenson was the cradle of Rock Island, the nursery of much of that intellectual and social life which has since expanded into the laraor and intenser life of the cit\-.

This had reference to the Summer of 1838, when the writer, Mr. C. McGrew, came up the river. In all the distance described, from Quincy to the lead mines at Galena, Stephenson was then the most noted steamboat landing. Here for manj^ years, travelers from the "Sangamon Country" and Fort Clark, reached the river on their way to Galena, and the mineral regions north.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Rock Island Township - it names this place 118 more 118 times.

Fires near this place

31 since 2006

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 31 fires within 5 miles of Rock Island between 2006 and 2011, burning about 9 acres in total. 2 started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	16
Smoking	6
Debris and open burning	4
Power generation/transmission/distribution	2
Natural	2
Equipment and vehicle use	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
23 September 2009	Smoking	under an acre	Illinois Division of Forestry Resources	IDNR2
16 September 2009	Smoking	under an acre	Illinois Division of Forestry Resources	I280 11
11 September 2009	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Illinois Division of Forestry Resources	IDNR
6 August 2008	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Illinois Division of Forestry Resources	CANAL
30 August 2010	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Illinois Division of Forestry Resources	UNION
16 August 2008	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2.0 acres	Illinois Division of Forestry Resources	MM15
11 August 2008	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Illinois Division of Forestry Resources	EAST
5 July 2010	Power generation/transmission/distribution	under an acre	Illinois Division of Forestry Resources	MILAN

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Rock Island County

Mines and quarries near this place

7 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 7 workings within 5 miles of Rock Island: 4 past producers, 2 producers, 1 plant. 3 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status
Big Island Plant #51 Dredge	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Builders Sand and Gravel Co. Dredge	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
General Pit No. 3 Milan Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Allied Stone Plant #30	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Plant
Bettendorf Stone Co. Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
Rock Island City Eng.	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
U. S. Army Engineers	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Rock Island County

Storms near this place

1 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Rock Island in 1 storm report in 1994: 1 hail. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
April 1994	Hail	Rock Island	-	On the evening of the 14th, and the early morning hours of the 15th, numerous thunderstorms moved across the Mississippi River bringing with them isolated wind and hail storms. Reports were received of 50 and 60 mph winds and three-quarter inch to one inch hail, but damage was minor. At 0145 CST lightning struck a tree in Reynolds, Illinois, followed by wind damage to metal shed. Shortly before 0200 CST, Port Byron, Illinois reported three-quarter inch to one inch hail.

Every storm recorded in Rock Island County

Nearest settlements

The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.

Place	Distance	Sheets
Moline	3.4 miles	20
Milan	3.9 miles	23
Fruitland	4.2 miles	23
Bridgeway Addition	4.7 miles	23
Ginger Hill	5.0 miles	23
Oak Grove	6.8 miles	23
East Moline	7.2 miles	21
Coyne Center	7.3 miles	23

Elsewhere

Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.

Wikipedia article on Rock Island	An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q577878	The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0).

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 416820. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.

Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.