DAVENPORT, p-v, capital of Scott CO., Iowa, 350 above St. Louis, by water, 60 above Burlington. This place is pleasantly situated on the N side of the Mississippi river. (Haskell's Complete Descriptive and Statistical Gazetteer of the the United States...,1840)
DAVENPORT, Io., c. h. Scott co. On the W. side of the Mississippi River, at the foot of the Lower Rapids, opposite the flourishing village of Rock Island, in Is. Important as the only feasible point to bridge the Mississippi. It is the seat of Iowa College. (Gazetteer of the United States of America, 1854)
DAVENPORT The city of Davenport, since the completion of the Chicago and Rock Island Railroad, has moved forward with rapid strides. The present population of the city is about 8000. The following from the correspondence of the St. Louis Republican gives a concise and correct statement : —
" We have two flouring-mills, six saw-mills, two planing- mills, one plow factory, two sash and blind factories, and two foundries, all operated by steam-engines, and doing a thriving business.
"The stores, numbering over one hundred, have passed through the transition state, from general country groceries to distinct and well appointed establishments, representing separately each prominent branch of commercial enterprise. The various churches and public edifices have emerged from their temporary chrysalis to large, commodious buildings. Farms of unsurpassed fertility, stretch their broad acres from our suburbs many miles into the interior, over the prairies, are creditable to the enterprise of our agriculturists, and supplying our city with every luxury, and a commerce commensurate with the importance of our locality. Our streets swarm with immigrants, our hotels, six in number, are insufficient for the accommodation of strangers. Our banking-houses, of which there are three, are sound and healthy. Our real estate offices, which are too numerous to enumerate, are converting money into property, and property into money, daily, at prices which, although comparatively high, make both buyer and seller rich. All kinds of business, and classes of business men, thrive and prosper. Two abutments, and three piers of the great Mississippi bridge are completed.
"Preparations for gas light on an extensive scale, form a new feature in the city's privileges. Our suburbs spring up with distinctive appellations, and North, West, and East Davenport, and Hamburg, would pass for respectable villages, apart from the nucleus.
"Davenport is becoming an important lumber depot. Besides the six saw-mills in operation here, cutting some fifteen or twenty millions of feet per annum, it is supplied by rafts from the pineries,which, on account of the spacious eddy at East Davenport, are induced to touch here before seeking another market.
"East Davenport contains 300 inhabitants, and has one flour and one saw-mill. It presents inducements for the extension of the lumber business beyond any other point on the Mississippi river above St. Louis. The main avenues penetrating the interior of the State, concentrate at this point, and the Mississippi and Missouri Railroad depot is contiguous to the village between it and Davenport proper, and doubtless a branch railroad will be extended to the eddy next season. Here, also, the supplies of lime and building-stone are derived, and the brick manufacture is extensively carried on.
"Five large new churches, dedicated last fall, rear their turrets towards heaven ; a new collegiate building, an extensive building for a female school, two market houses, and several stores, of architectural proportions, are among the edifices of last year's growth.
Local Manufactures. — Five saw-mills have turned out 7,000,000 feet of lumber; two planing-mills and sash factories have worked 2,000,000 feet of lumber; one plow factory manufactured 1500 plows; two foundries and machine shops; two flouring-mills manufactured 50,000 barrels of flour; four cooper shops manufactured 30,000 flour barrels, and 1000 pork barrels. Population of Davenport 8000; increase 2200 over 1853. Scott County, 17,000. (Iowa As It Is in 1855; A Gazetteer for Citizens..., 1855)