Downtown Rock Island Historic District

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\-.

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.

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 - 19,359 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.