Modern Woodmen of America Interior
1504 3rd Avenue The next time you go to the Rock Island County Building, make it a point to go through the main entrance near the west end of the building. As soon as you are inside the building, stop and look up. Odds are you’ve never noticed the elaborately paneled wood ceiling in the … [ Continued
Rock Island House Café
Second Avenue & 16th Street They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and this picture postcard does indeed tell its own story. The postcard from Shannon Hall’s collection shows the small café in the Rock Island House hotel as it appeared after 1910. Because such postcards with interior views are uncommon, they imply … [ Continued
Model T Touring Car – Rock Island to California
Second Avenue & 14th Street Sometimes there’s a postcard that allows our imagination to play. This is one such card. It was hard to identify, but there were clues. First, the sign hanging on the building says “Brown’s Business College.” Then there were the words someone had scrawled on the back of the unaddressed and … [ Continued
Twentieth Street South from Third Avenue
This circa 1910 postcard is identified only as “20th Street, Rock Island, Ill.” But 20th Street is long – how could we identify the photo more precisely? Since these are obviously commercial buildings, the geographical area was limited to downtown. And noting all the awnings, it was apparent that these buildings had to face either … [ Continued