Woeber Carriage Works, also known as the G. Hager & Co. Carriage Works and the Davenport Plow Works, is a historic building located on Lot 3, Block 20 of the original town of

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 listed on the

Davenport Register of Historic Properties This is a list of the Davenport Register of Historic Properties in Davenport, Iowa, United States. The historic preservation movement began in the city of Davenport in the mid-1970s with the renovation of several historic structures. A comprehensi ...

on November 15, 2000. (Click on "Historic Preservation Commission" and then click on "Davenport Register of Historic Properties and Local Landmarks.") 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 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 ...

History

The building was built in 1881 for the Davenport Plow Works. The property was formerly the location for First Presbyterian Church. The Classified Business Directory of August 1881 indicates the company was located at 310-324 W. 3rd Street. The 1886 Sanborn Fire Insurance map indicates that the building at 312 W. Third Street housed a machine shop, "setting up" and storage on all three floors of the front section. The stone structure attached to the rear of the building, built in 1857, housed polishing and grinding on the first floor and storage on the second floor. The rest of the Davenport Plow Works was in the building immediately to the west. After the plow works failed, Davenport attorney and real estate investor C.A. Ficke bought the building in 1889 and renovated it to lease to tenants. Various businesses have occupied the building. Peter A. Reimers and James Larkin occupied the building from 1898–1910, with P.A. Reimers, who manufactured cornices, skylights, slate, and metal roofs, occupying it for a further year. The Benner Tea Co. (1915–1918), Federal System of Bakeries (1920), the Chicago Butchers Market Co. (1925), Safe-Way Markets (1930), and Atlas Cigar (1940) all occupied the building. A nightclub by the name of the Carriage Haus now occupies the building.

Architecture

The building is three stories and constructed of

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 ...

in a restrained

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. Its foundation is likely constructed of stone. There is a two-story structure attached to the rear. The brick portion of the building is rectangular in shape with a flat roof. 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 divided into three parts: the storefront, the upper wall, and the

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 building retains its original dual entrances, which were not always recessed, and the exposed steel beam that separates the storefront from the top two stories. The windows on the upper floors are organized in two sets of three on both floors. It emphasizes the two sides of the building. Each window features a segmentally arched header and a stone sill. The cornice is composed of patterned brickwork. The stone structure in the back is a rectangular

vernacular A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...

structure that features a

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, ...

. The double-hung windows are the dominant feature of the structure.

Company

The Woeber Brothers Carriage Works was formed when Adam Woeber acquired his brothers' Davenport-based

wagon A wagon or waggon is a heavy four-wheeled vehicle pulled by draught animals or on occasion by humans, used for transporting goods, commodities, agricultural materials, supplies and sometimes people. Wagons are immediately distinguished from ...

manufacturing firm in 1872, which had been operating since the 1850s. The company specialized in building commercial wagons as well as other vehicles and heavy equipment.

References

{{Historic Davenport structures Industrial buildings completed in 1881 Industrial buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa Historic district contributing properties in Iowa Davenport Register of Historic Properties Buildings and structures in Davenport, Iowa Vernacular architecture in Iowa Italianate architecture in Iowa