Clifton is a historic building located in the West End of

Davenport, Iowa Davenport ( ) is a city in Scott County, Iowa, United States, and its county seat. It is situated along the Mississippi River on the eastern border of the state. Davenport had a population of 101,724 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 cen ...

, United States. The residence was individually listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1979. 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 dist ...

in the

Riverview Terrace Historic District The Riverview Terrace Historic District is a historic district (United States), historic district in Davenport, Iowa, United States, that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. It was listed on the Davenport Register o ...

in 1983. with

History

The house was constructed for J.M.D. Burrows. He was an early settler to Davenport having arrived in the town c. 1838. In 1844 he established a wholesale company, Burrows and Prettyman. They did business along the

Upper Mississippi River The Upper Mississippi River is the portion of the Mississippi River upstream of St. Louis, Missouri, United States, a city at the confluence of its main tributary, the Missouri River. Historically, it may refer to the area above the Arkansa ...

and west to the

Missouri River The Missouri River is a river in the Central United States, Central and Mountain states, Mountain West regions of the United States. The nation's longest, it rises in the eastern Centennial Mountains of the Bitterroot Range of the Rocky Moun ...

Iowa Iowa ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the upper Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west; Wisconsin to the northeast, Ill ...

and

Nebraska Nebraska ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Ka ...

. They also made significant profits from their contracts with the U.S. Government supplying

Fort Snelling Fort Snelling is a former military fortification and National Historic Landmark in the U.S. state of Minnesota on the bluffs overlooking the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers. The military site was initially named Fort Saint An ...

and

Fort Crawford Fort Crawford was an outpost of the United States Army located in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, during the 19th century. The army's occupation of Prairie du Chien spanned the existence of two fortifications, both of them named Fort Crawford. The ...

along the Mississippi. with He lost his firm in the Financial

Panic of 1857 The Panic of 1857 was a financial crisis in the United States caused by the declining international economy and over-expansion of the domestic economy. Because of the invention of the telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission ...

. Burrows mortgaged the house to

Antoine LeClaire Antoine Le Claire (also LeClaire; December 15, 1797 – September 25, 1861) was an American military interpreter, businessman, philanthropist, and principal founder of Davenport, Iowa. Biography Early life Le Claire was born on December 15, 1797 ...

to pay off his debts. He was never able to regain the title to the house and it eventually went to the descendants of George Davenport. Both Davenport and LeClaire founded the city of Davenport and developed it in its earliest decades. In 1905 the house was sold to John Winters, who converted it into apartments.

Architecture

The house is typical of the

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

style in Davenport in that it also included elements of the

Greek Revival Greek Revival architecture is a architectural style, style that began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe, the United States, and Canada, ...

style found especially at the main entrance. It is a two-story, nearly square Italianate palazzo. It features a large square

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, usually dome-like structure on top of a building often crowning a larger roof or dome. Cupolas often serve as a roof lantern to admit light and air or as a lookout. The word derives, via Ital ...

on the center of the

hipped roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downward to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope, with variants including tented roofs and others. Thus, a hipped roof has no gables or other vertical sides ...

. The cupola has five narrow, round-arch windows on each side. The two show fronts are five

bays 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'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...

wide. The garden front on the south has a

pediment Pediments are a form of gable in classical architecture, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the cornice (an elaborated lintel), or entablature if supported by columns.Summerson, 130 In an ...

tetrastyle A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cultu ...

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cu ...

. The wall brackets on the

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

continue onto the portico. The columns that hold up the portico follow the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

Ionic order The Ionic order is one of the three canonic classical order, orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric order, Doric and the Corinthian order, Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan order, Tuscan (a plainer Doric) ...

after

Vincenzo Scamozzi Vincenzo Scamozzi (2 September 1548 – 7 August 1616) was an Italians, Italian architect and a writer on architecture, active mainly in Vicenza and Republic of Venice area in the second half of the 16th century. He was perhaps the most importan ...

. The columns rest on paneled pedestals. Between them is a cast concrete

balustrade A baluster () is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its ...

that was extended in the early 20th-century in a semi-circular fashion beyond the portico. The north front of the house has a one-story

porch A porch (; , ) is a room or gallery located in front of an entrance to a building. A porch is placed in front of the façade of a building it commands, and forms a low front. Alternatively, it may be a vestibule (architecture), vestibule (a s ...

that covers the middle three bays. At one time it stretched the entire length of the house. When the house was built there were single-story, two-bay wings on the east and west sides. They stopped short of the main wall on the south front and ended in short recessed porches. Sometime after 1905, the porches were eliminated and a second floor was added to both wings when the house was converted into apartments.

References

External links

{{West Davenport Houses Houses completed in 1853 Greek Revival houses in Iowa Italianate architecture in Iowa Houses in Davenport, Iowa Houses 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