Early Rock Island Businesses
The first brick store in Rock Island was built by Lemuel Andrews, and
is still in existence, just east of the Court House, and now occupied by
Mrs. Roessler, adjoining the old frame house built and occupied by Mr.
Andrews, and long occupied by Mrs. Benjamin Cobb. This old brick building
was a general store, kept by Andrews and Mc-Masters. Mr. Andrews later
building on the site of the present E. P. Reynolds' homestead, a good
brick residence with a large porch around three sides, and facing the
slough, beside the county road, where the railroad tracks now are.
Mr. Andrews afterward built the large, costly mansion known as the Cable
residence. He also built the first saw and grist mill in the lower end of
town, in 1841. The first boat yard was established by J. C. Holt, in 1841,
succeeded by Bailey and Boyle, about where the present Arsenal viaduct
bridge is located. They later established a large general store in a new
brick block, on the present site of the Mitchell and Lynde block.
The principal early-time book store was that of H. A. Porter and Brother,
in 1849, located on the south side of Illinois Street, between Buffalo and
Eagle Streets. At one time their chief clerk was Richard Crampton, who
arrived here from New York May 1, 1854, and ever since has been in the
book business in this city. H. A. Porter and Brother went to Chicago in
1858, where they established the Chicago Type Foundry. Mr. Crampton
succeeding to their book business, later forming a partnership with John
G. Devoe, who at one time was a proof reader for Horace Greeley on the old
New York Tribune, the firm becoming Devoe and Crampton. They started in at
the old stand, afterwards moving to Frank Warren's old store, where Sam
Wright now is, and then to the old post office building of L. M. Webber,
on which site Miss Byrnes is now in business. Later they moved into a new
building erected by Tom Plummer, the old livery man, in the center of the
same block, where his old livery stable was, the first story being below
the street. The building was quite a distance from the sidewalk, having a
very wide and long platform making a carriage way to the second story,
nearly even with the street. Afterwards the firm moved across the street
to the Peter Fries building, located nearly on the site of the old W. H.
Whitman residence, which Mr. Fries and family at one time occupied, where
Young and McCombs now are. Devoe and Crampton's store was the political
and newspaper headquarters of the city, everybody going there after supper
for the Chicago papers and talk. Those were lively, chatty evenings. At
one time they had a prominent elevated sign in front of the store on the
outer edge of the sidewalk representing a very large wheel, the spokes of
which advertised their wares, and on the rim was the motto by which the
establishment was long known- "The Moral Center of the Intellectual
World."
Where Bengston's block is, in the early fifties, stood an old two-story
long frame building, called Doty's Row, built in the forties. In 1855
Smith and Lathrop leased forty feet of the ground on the corner for twenty
years, at a yearly rental of four hundred dollars and taxes, and tearing
down the old Doty Row, they built a three-story brick block, which they
later sold to E. H. Smythe. It was called the E. H. Smythe block, a
covered stairway running up the outside of the building, as does the
present Bengston block, built on this old site in 1875. E. H. and H. A.
Smythe were old clothiers here, having been preceded by Knox and Company.
The chief caterers were Mr. and Mrs. Butcher, two respected colored
people, who will be remembered by a great many of the old timers. At their
restaurant the best supper, game, steaks and chops, could be had, none
better since their day; game, especially, being very plentiful. Quail
could be bought for twenty-five cents per dozen in those days, and prairie
chickens in comparison. Mrs. Butcher often served families at their home
parties.
The Butchers were located in a good sized frame house, back of the old
Rock Island House toward the river, on old West Eagle Street. They had an
unusually bright, smart son, and there was no better dressed man in town
than Al. Butcher. Dame Rumor says he used to wax the white boys at poker;
no names mentioned. He paid a short visit here a year ago from Memphis,
his home now, where he was made provost marshal after the War of the
Rebellion.
The main provider for the inner man was old Fred Ridenbaugh, who conducted
the old Young America - called the Empire-on Market Square, a place where
the best men in town went for a supper, oyster stew, or drink-business
men, lawyers and doctors. At his demise, according to his desire, the
funeral was held from the First Presbyterian Church, its pastor, Reverend
S. T. Wilson, officiating.
One of the very early butcher shops, in 1852, was that of L. Buttrick,
situated in Market Square, near the present drinking fountain and hay
scales. It was a small, one-story frame building, boards running up and
down, with a small shed addition in the rear, and all whitewashed.
The first foundry and machine shop was established by Webber, Boyd and
Company, in 1849, on the corner of Illinois and Broad-way Streets,
succeeded by C. C. Webber and Company, and known as the Union Foundry. One
door east, in 1855, was established the office of Lowry, Thomas and
Company, proprietors of the Carbon Cliff Coal Mining Company. In 1853 N.
B. and T. J. Buford built a foundry and machine shop on Water Street east
of Buffalo. Another good old foundry man, an expert, was W. H. Thompson,
who in 1856 had the Vulcan Foundry near Broadway and Moline Avenue, facing
what is now Twenty-fourth Street. His son, David C. Thompson, for the past
thirty-six years superintendent of the foundry at Rock Island Arsenal,
became, under the tutelage of his father, an adept. W. H. Thompson was a
great " Bobby Burns" man, and always recognized his birthday. He could
quote Burns galore, and with the genuine Scotch idiom.
John Bulley, an Englishman, in 1855 kept a crockery store on the corner of
Buffalo and Rock River Streets, and was an importer of china, crockery and
glassware. The building was a long one-story frame building, the boards
running up and down, and white-washed both inside and outside. He was
commonly spoken of as the "bully man."
Lee and Wilmans had another crockery store in 1854, in a frame building
just east of the present Central Presbyterian Church, north of the Court
House.
John Bengston came here in 1862, clerking in the drug store of C. H.
Fahnestock, in the center of the block east of Buffalo Street. The store
was conducted afterwards by Fahnestock and Lewis, and then by Charles A.
Benser, who moved to the corner of Eagle and Illinois Streets, the present
place of T. H. Thomas, where the old corner has had Cook, Sargent and
Parker's bank, the grocery stores of M. S. Herrick, and Charles M. Knox,
son of Joe Knox, one of our old time lawyers. There have also been two
drug stores on this site.
J. K. Bard, in the middle sixties, kept a grocery store called the
"Painted Barrels," located under Dart's Hall. The store took its name from
a prominent elevated sign of a barrel painted in varied colors.
In the centre of the block between Sixteenth and Seventeenth Streets, in
the early sixties, used to be a large sized nursery display grounds for
the Hakes Nursery, which was in the rear of Holmes Hakes residence, now
Joseph Rosenfield's residence, on Seventh Avenue near Eighteenth Street. A
two-story brick building was built there afterwards, occupied by W. C. and
H. T. Wadsworth as a dry goods store; they were succeeded by Mitchell and
Parsons. Next door west, in 1854, was the grocery store of Gray Brothers,
Tom and Jessie. Near where Carse's Block now is, a heavy set man, known by
the name of "Puff and Windy Smith," had a dry goods and general store.
Henry Honsman started a stove store and tin shop in 1845, in the center of
the post office block on Illinois Street, next door to a butcher shop kept
by James Copp, senior, and his son, George. Mr. Honsman some time later
moved to the present Buford Block, leaving Rock Island for Denver in 1863.
He was succeeded by Hass and Kane, and afterwards by Michael Kane, J. B.
Dan-forth being a silent partner. In 1855 George Whisler kept a grocery
and seed store next to Copp's meat market; next door was Eric Okerberg,
who came to Rock Island in 1851, said to be the first watchmaker in Rock
Island County.
In 1852 David Bowen and brother kept a one-story, good sized frame grocery
store on the present post office corner.
In 1862 David Don opened a stove store and tin shop on Illinois Street
just east of the present Illinois Theatre. Robert Don, in 1860, ran a
bakery where the Beecher property is, just west of Carse's Hall. The
old-time baker was Charley Yates, on Illinois Street east of Buffalo, and
then Jake Aster on Market Square. For years Ernest Krell was baker,
confectioner and caterer; always ready to assist the ladies at their
church socials. W. B. Sargent started a small grocery store in 1860 en the
corner of Illinois and Washington Streets, where the Peoples National Bank
stands, afterwards having as a partner, Harry Williams, then David Hawes.
After Major C. W. Hawes, his son, returned from the Army, he bought his
father's interest. The store was a small frame building, painted a reddish
brown, and Sargent and Hawes used to advertise it as the "Dilapitated
Corner." It made way for future improvements. Mr. Sargent and his son,
Nute, in 1868, bought out the grocery store of J. B. Plummer, under the
old Rod-man House.
Warnock and Kelly started the first soap factory, prior to 1855,
advertising as manufacturers of "candles, variegated soaps, and common
soaps, and dealers in soda-ash and rosin." This manufactory was near the
boat yard.
In December, 1859, Archie and Tom Shaw commenced pork packing on the
present site of James S. Gilmore's packing house, and continued until
1870, when they went to Chicago, and James S. Gilmore succeeded to the
business, which he has carried on ever since, making a continuous pork
packing business for over forty-eight years at the same place.
Joseph and Mayer Rosenfield started business in 1856, in hides and leather
findings, in a one and one-half story building next to Gray Brothers'
grocery store, on the north side of Illinois Street, between Buffalo and
Eagle Streets, afterwards moving to the Iglehart corner, then to the N. B.
Buford Block, east of Carse's Hall, and afterwards to more commodious
quarters at 1628 Second Avenue.
Source: Historic Rock Island County, pub. Kramer & Company, Rock Island, Illinois, 1908