The Moline Downtown Commercial Historic 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

Moline, Illinois Moline ( ) is a city located in Rock Island County, Illinois, United States. With a population of 42,985 in 2020, it is the largest city in Rock Island County. Moline is one of the Quad Cities, along with neighboring East Moline, Illinois, East M ...

, United States. Centered on 5th Avenue, it is roughly bounded by 12th Street to 18th Street, 4th Avenue to 7th Avenue. The distinct covers and includes 114 buildings. One hundred of the buildings contribute to the significance of the district because they retain their historic and architectural integrity and reflect the character of the historic downtown.

History

The city of Moline traces its beginnings to the arrival of David B. Sears from

Cairo, Illinois Cairo ( ) is the southernmost city in Illinois and the county seat of Alexander County. The city is located at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Fort Defiance, a Civil War camp, was built here in 1862 by Union General Ulysses ...

in 1836. He established a brush and stone mill in 1838 in what was an unincorporated area known as Rock Island Mills. Other mills were opened in the area that did everything from grinding corn and wheat to processing logs into lumber.

John Deere Deere & Company, doing business as John Deere (), is an American corporation that manufactures agricultural machinery, heavy equipment, forestry machinery, diesel engines, drivetrains (axles, transmissions, gearboxes) used in heavy equipment, ...

opened his first factory 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 ...

in 1847, as part of a partnership, Deere, Tate, and Gould. The partnership would dissolve in 1852 and become

Deere & Company Deere & Company, Trade name, doing business as John Deere (), is an American corporation that manufactures agricultural machinery, heavy equipment, forestry machinery, diesel engines, drivetrains (axles, transmissions, gearboxes) used in heavy e ...

. The name of the area was changed to Moline, an adaptation of the French word for "milltown." Moline was incorporated into a town on April 21, 1848. Moline Carnegie Library 2

Moline's downtown commercial district initially developed along Third Avenue between Fifteenth and Eighteenth Streets. It was close to the factories and mills that lined the river. Most of the buildings were two and three stories, built of brick in the

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 ...

style. It was separated from the rest of the city by railroad tracks. The first train passed through Moline's commercial district in February 1854. By 1895 there were 75 trains a day on the tracks and it made it difficult for residents to reach the main business district. By the turn of the 20th century, businesses started to relocate south of the tracks. Initially, they chose locations along 15th Street, which had a trolley line that climbed the hill to the city's newer residential districts. In the 1910s several large commercial buildings were built along Fifth Avenue, which became the main artery in the downtown business district. Sixth Avenue became a secondary artery through the area. A significant loss to the area were several stately homes that lined the avenues. By the 1920s the downtown area featured bank buildings that contained office space on multiple floors above the main banking rooms on the first floor, as well as other office buildings. These buildings provided a variety of professional services. Two of the buildings were eight stories tall, the Fifth Avenue Building and a building that is now houses

Chase Bank JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., doing business as Chase Bank or often as Chase, is an American national bank headquartered in New York City, that constitutes the consumer and commercial banking subsidiary of the U.S. multinational banking and fina ...

. The

LeClaire Hotel LeClaire Hotel is an historic building located in downtown Moline, Illinois, United States. It was named a Moline Historic Landmark in 1993, and it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994. The building now houses apartment ...

, which opened in 1922, anchored the east side of the downtown area. On the west side of downtown is the imposing First Lutheran Church, which was built in 1876. Department stores, first-floor specialty shops, theaters, hotels, restaurants, and bars rounded out the businesses. Institutional structures such as the Carnegie Library (1904), City Hall (1914), Elks Club (1924), and the Unitarian Church (1928) were also built in the downtown business district. The downtown historic district continued to be the main business and cultural area for the city into the mid 20th century. The area was also the location for parades and other civic gatherings. By the 1940s auto dealerships and gas stations started to appear along the edges of downtown. Five large department stores were located downtown: Block & Kuhl Company; New York Store, which was demolished in 1990;

J. C. Penney Penney OpCo LLC, doing business as JCPenney and often abbreviated JCP, is a midscale American department store chain operating 667 stores across 49 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. Departments inside JCPenney stores include Mens, Womens, Boys, Girl ...

;

Sears, Roebuck & Company Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...

; and Montgomery Ward & Company. In the 1950s and 1960s, storefronts were modified in an attempt to modernize their looks. The department stores closed in the 1970s and 1980s after SouthPark Mall opened in 1974. Since then some of the older buildings in the district have been torn down, but for the most part, the buildings that remain have retained their historical integrity. There has also been significant development along the river, just outside the historic district, after the

TaxSlayer Center The Vibrant Arena at The MARK, formerly known as The MARK of the Quad Cities, the iWireless Center, and the TaxSlayer Center is a 12,000-seat multi-purpose arena located in Moline, Illinois. The facility opened in May 1993, under the name The MA ...

opened in 1993.

Architecture

The Moline Downtown Commercial Historic District contains numerous architectural building styles, including: Beaux-Arts,

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 ...

, Neoclassical,

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 ...

Tudor Revival Tudor Revival architecture (also known as mock Tudor in the UK) first manifested itself in domestic architecture in the United Kingdom in the latter half of the 19th century. Based on revival of aspects that were perceived as Tudor architecture ...

Italian Renaissance The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the trans ...

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 ...

, Moderne,

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

, Chateauesque, and

Commercial Commercial may refer to: * a dose of advertising conveyed through media (such as - for example - radio or television) ** Radio advertisement ** Television advertisement * (adjective for:) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and s ...

. Several prominent local architects designed some of the more significant buildings in the historic district. Olaf Z. Cervin designed the First National Bank Building, now Chase Bank, and the Reliance Block. H. W. Wittsett designed the Moline Commercial Club. William Schultzke has the largest number of historically significant buildings downtown. He designed the Bell Telephone Building, Montgomery Ward, Moline National Bank (now

First Midwest Bank First Midwest Bancorp, Inc was headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, just east of O'Hare Airport. The company's predecessor traces back to Joliet, Illinois. From there the company has grown to serve many Chicago suburbs including northwest Indiana ...

), the Fifth Avenue Building, Sohrbecks, Carlson Brothers, Elks Club, and City Hall,

References

External links

Historic District map
{{NRHP in Rock Island County, Illinois Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois Buildings and structures in Moline, Illinois National Register of Historic Places in Rock Island County, Illinois