Moline city i Rock Island county i Illinois i USA

Arkiv: Rock Island County, Illinois Genealogy
Länk: Moline, Illinois

In 1837, David B. Sears and a group of associates built a 600-foot (180 m) stone-and-brush dam across Sylvan Slough, thereby connecting the southern bank of the Mississippi River to what is today called Arsenal Island. The dam not only served as an access road between the island's settlements and the mainland, but it provided water power for a mill which Sears built to saw wood, grind corn, and card wool. The water power generated by the dam attracted many industrialists. Over the next seven years, a number of factories sprouted up along the shoreline. A factory town was platted in 1843 on the Illinois shore under the working name of ”Rock Island Mills”. The name did not stick. When Charles Atkinson, one of the major landowners in the area, was offered the choice of naming the town Moline (”City of Mills”, from the French moulin, as suggested by a local surveyor P.H. Olgilvie) or Hesperia (meaning ”Star of the West”), he chose Moline. The town of Moline was incorporated on April 21, 1848 under Illinois state law and granted a charter for a trustee form of government.

The same year, John Deere, the inventor of the self-scouring steel plow, relocated his steel plow company from Grand Detour, Illinois, to Moline. At the time, Moline had a population of only a few hundred, mostly involved in work at the mill. Despite Moline's small size, Deere saw several promising elements there: Moline's dam and coal deposits would provide a good source of power; Moline was near the other well-established towns of Stephenson (later renamed Rock Island) in Illinois and Davenport in Iowa; and Moline's access to the river would make shipping goods cost-efficient. As Deere expanded his factories, Moline grew in area and population.

Charles Atkinson and others successfully lobbied the federal government to get the first transcontinental railroad to pass through Moline and to cross the Mississippi over Arsenal Island. The railroad, which arrived in 1854, carried thousands of immigrants – at that time mostly Swedish, Belgian, and German, reflecting areas of economic problems in Europe – to Moline's borders. The immigrants, most of whom knew little or no English, responded to the call of ”John Deere Town” by the conductor. The railroad connected the region to the national economy, ending its previous isolation, and ensured the future success of the area. Manufactured goods were increasingly transported over rail instead of by water.

Moline acquired its name after it was platted (surveyed and planned) in 1843.[5] The name derives from the French moulin meaning ”mill town”.