The Old City Hall, also known as Oxford Flats, is located just north of downtown along a commercial corridor 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. It was individually 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 1983. In 2020 it was included as a

contributing property 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 distri ...

in the

Davenport Downtown Commercial Historic District The Davenport Downtown Commercial Historic District is a nationally recognized historic district located in the central business district of Davenport, Iowa, United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2020. At th ...

History

Designed by Davenport architect Willett Carroll, the building was built in 1857 as an engine house for a fire company. with That year the city council rejected sites along Washington Square and Court House Square for a new city hall, so in early 1858 the engine house's hall became the council chambers and other municipal offices were moved into other sections of the building. It continued to be used as a combination city hall and fire station until Hose Station No. 1 was built in 1877. A significant number of local industrialists and professionals served as mayor when this building housed city hall. They include George B. Sargent (1857), Ebeneezer Cook (1858–59),

Hiram Price Hiram Price (January 10, 1814 – May 30, 1901) was a nineteenth-century banker, merchant, bookkeeper, bank president, railroad president, and five-term Republican congressman from Iowa's 2nd congressional district and as commissioner of In ...

(1859), George H. French (1861-1862), John L. Davies (1865-1866), Michael Donahue (1867-1868), John C. Bills (1871, 1882, 1892), Ernest Claussen (1883-1889), and C. A. Ficke (1890-1891). The current

city hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...

was built in 1895 and five years later the city sold this building to John Ochs’ Sons realty. The building was converted around 1910 into a residential building containing six flats, and the structure was dramatically altered to its present appearance. It was renamed Oxford Flats and it reflected the trend of building apartment buildings on the edge of the downtown area. While the structure is the oldest building in Davenport that is associated with municipal government and politics, it remains an apartment building.

Architecture

When it was originally built it exhibited elements of the Italian

Renaissance Revival Renaissance Revival architecture (sometimes referred to as "Neo-Renaissance") is a group of 19th century architectural revival styles which were neither Greek Revival nor Gothic Revival but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range o ...

style, and it included a tower on top of the east elevation. It now reflects the Neoclassical style. The three-story, three

bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a Gulf (geography), gulf, sea, sound (geography), sound, or bight (geogra ...

brick A brick is a type of block used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a block composed of dried clay, but is now also used informally to denote other chemically cured cons ...

building was built on a stone foundation. The

façade A façade () (also written facade) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a Loanword, loan word from the French language, French (), which means 'frontage' or 'face'. In architecture, the façade of a building is often t ...

is dominated by a two-story polygonal

oriel window An oriel window is a form of bay window which protrudes from the main wall of a building but does not reach to the ground. Supported by corbels, bracket (architecture), brackets, or similar cantilevers, an oriel window is most commonly found pro ...

that is ornamented with

fleur-de-lis The fleur-de-lis, also spelled fleur-de-lys (plural ''fleurs-de-lis'' or ''fleurs-de-lys''), is a lily (in French, and mean 'flower' and 'lily' respectively) that is used as a decorative design or symbol. The fleur-de-lis has been used in the ...

. The

post and lintel In architecture, post and lintel (also called prop and lintel or a trabeated system) is a building system where strong horizontal elements are held up by strong vertical elements with large spaces between them. This is usually used to hold up ...

entrance is on the left side of the east elevation, which is capped by a projecting

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

. The west elevation is topped with a half-

hipped roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope (although a tented roof by definition is a hipped roof with steeply pitched slopes rising to a peak). Thus, ...

References

{{Historic Davenport structures Government buildings completed in 1857 Former seats of local government Neoclassical architecture in Iowa Apartment buildings in Davenport, Iowa City and town halls on the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa National Register of Historic Places in Davenport, Iowa Individually listed contributing properties to historic districts on the National Register in Iowa