The Cork Hill District is a nationally recognized

historic district A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal protection from c ...

located in

Davenport, Iowa Davenport is a city in and the county seat of Scott County, Iowa, United States. Located along the Mississippi River on the eastern border of the state, it is the largest of the Quad Cities, a metropolitan area with a population of 384,324 and a ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1984. The historic district covers and stretches from the campus of

Palmer College of Chiropractic Palmer College of Chiropractic is a private chiropractic college with its main campus in Davenport, Iowa. It was established in 1897 by Daniel David Palmer and was the first school of chiropractic in the world. The college's name was original ...

on the west to the Sacred Heart Cathedral Complex on the east. It is the western half of a neighborhood of the same name. When listed, the district included 12

contributing buildings In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic distric ...

. It includes

Greek Revival The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but ...

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

, and

Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literature ...

architecture. The district was covered in a 1982 study of the Davenport Multiple Resource Area and/or its 1983 follow-on., ''(pages 1-30 of PDF document)''

History

Cork Hill itself is the western section of a larger area of Davenport known as the LeClaire Reserve, named after the landowner and city founder

Antoine LeClaire Antoine Le Claire (also "LeClaire"; December 15, 1797 – September 25, 1861) was a US Army interpreter, landowner in Scott County, Iowa, and Rock Island County, Illinois, businessman, philanthropist and principal founder of Davenport, Iowa. ...

. It was a large Yankee-Irish neighborhood on the east side of town. The houses of the Cork Hill District reflect the long history of the development of the LeClaire Reserve. The area developed in an unsystematic fashion that resulted in a mixture of architectural forms and styles on every block. with LeClaire himself built his

home A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or many humans, and sometimes various companion animals. It is a fully or semi sheltered space and can have both interior and exterior aspects to it. H ...

in the Reserve in 1855 and St. Margaret's Church in 1856. Other prominent families, such as the Frenches, also moved to the area. The family of industrialists were also patrons of the arts and literature in the city. Alice French, whose

pen name A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen na ...

was Octave Thanet, was known as the first

Iowa Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to the ...

author with a national reputation. The Irish started moving to Davenport after the Great Famine in

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

of the 1840s and 1850s.Svendsen, 1-10 Because large numbers of Irish immigrants settled around St. Margaret's Church, the area became known as Cork Hill. Many of the Irish who were located here were laborers who worked for the railroads or in the mills along the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

. Most of the houses belonging to Irish families were replaced at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century by larger dwellings. However, because of this early association with the Irish the area surrounding Sacred Heart Cathedral, which replaced St. Margaret's in 1891, continues to be referred to as Cork Hill.

Architecture

The homes built in the Cork Hill District reflect most of the major architectural styles of the 19th century. They are, however, simpler than the homes found in the Hamburg Historic District, the former German neighborhood which is located on the bluff to the west. The contrast shows how the various styles were adapted to suit different income levels and tastes. For the most part, the houses here are two stories tall and frame construction. They are mostly single-family dwellings or were at the time they were built. Double houses were also built in the district and were distinguishable by their double entrances. The earliest houses on Cork Hill were built in the Greek Revival style that was popular in early Davenport architecture and continued as the city matured. The Italianate style started to appear in the 1850s, and its use was popularized by LeClaire's house. It was followed by Queen Anne and

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

styles. As the 19th century came to a close the

Colonial Revival The Colonial Revival architectural style seeks to revive elements of American colonial architecture. The beginnings of the Colonial Revival style are often attributed to the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, which reawakened Americans to the archi ...

style became more popular, as did the

American Craftsman American Craftsman is an American domestic architectural style, inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement, which included interior design, landscape design, applied arts, and decorative arts, beginning in the last years of the 19th century. Its ...

and Victorian styles. A couple of houses were also influenced by the

Prairie School Prairie School is a late 19th- and early 20th-century architectural style, most common in the Midwestern United States. The style is usually marked by horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs with broad overhanging eaves, windows grouped in ...

. While most of the homes were built as single-family structures, there is also a significant number of double houses on Cork Hill.

References

External links

{{Davenport Historic districts in Davenport, Iowa Residential buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa Greek Revival architecture in Iowa Italianate architecture in Iowa Victorian architecture in Iowa National Register of Historic Places in Davenport, Iowa Irish-American history Irish-American culture in Iowa Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa