Friday, June 26, 2009

1882 Davenport, Scott County, Iowa


Davenport, Ia. 1888. Wellge, H. (Henry)

CREATED/PUBLISHED: Milwaukee, American Publishing Co. [1888]
NOTES: Perspective map not drawn to scale., Bird's-eye-view. Includes illus. and index to points of interest.
MEDIUM: col. map 50 x 101 cm.
CALL NUMBER: G4154.D2A3 1888 .W4
REPOSITORY: Library of Congress Geography and Map Division Washington, D.C. 20540-4650 USA
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g4154d.pm002100

Davenport, Iowa 1888

To download a large view of this map, click the link above
(File Size: 33.4 MB)


Date: unknown
Creator: unknown
Image Source: From the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division.
Permission: Public Domain

Panoramic View of Davenport, Iowa
To download a large view of this map, click the link above
(File Size: 10.9 MB)


From 1882 Iowa State Gazeteer and Business Directory: Davenport, Scott County, Iowa

DAVENPORT- The city of Davenport is situated on the west bank of the Mississippi River, 188 miles west of Chicago, Ill., 249 north of St. Louis, Mo., and 174 east of Des Moines. It was first laid out in 1836, and the county of Scott, of which it is the judicial seat, was organized in 1837. Its growth in population and wealth has been steady and constant from the first, and today its commercial importance is second to no city in Iowa. Nearly opposite, in Illinois, are the cities of Rock Island and Moline, and in the river is situated Rock Island, upon which is located the most extensive government arsenal and armory in the county. The three cities and the islands are connected by fine bridges. The C.R.I. & P. Ry, and the D line C., M & St P Ry, are the important railway lines which enter the city which with close connections with other lines on the opposite side of the river and the great Mississippi highway itself, gives it ample shipping facilities to every point of the compass. The sum of $66,194 was expended in 1881 upon the maintenance of its public schools. Griswold College and several other smaller educational institutions are also well supported. Its academy of natural sciences and public library are the pride of the city. Twenty-five churches of various denominations are well sustained. The water works system is complete and is supplemented by a fire department with fire alarm telegraph. About 10 miles of street railways are in operation. A telephone exchange connects the three cities of Davenport, Rock Island and Moline and several villages within a radius of 15 miles. The leading hotels are the Kimball House and the St. James, and there are no better in the west. The Burtis opera house is a fine structure with a seating capacity of 1600. There are three daily newspapers and six weekly journals.

For healthfulness Davenport ranks first of 60 cities reporting to the National Health Bureau. Its death rate for 1881 was 17.2 in 1000 being the lowest on the list. The manufacturing and commercial interests of the city are best shown by a brief resume of the statistics compiled by the Gazette for the year 1881 as follows:

The cut of lumber by its several mills was larger than ever known in its history. The sales for the year aggregated a value of $1,280,000 with 480 men employed. In agricultural implements, the facilities for manufacture have been largely increased by extensive additions to buildings and working force and capital, among the most prominent of which are the Eagle Manufacturing Company, the Davenport Plow Company, and J.S. Davis' Sons. The Davenport Pump Co., the Oatmeal mill, and the "Crescent" and "Phoenix” flouring mills have each largely increased their capacity for manufacture. The Glucose Co. has made extensive additions to its works, and has now a capacity for consuming 3, 000 bushels of corn daily. The Davenport Pottery, a comparatively new enterprise, has doubled its capacity. The Davenport Woolen Mills, long suspended, have renewed operations with extensive contracts. The manufacture of carriages and wagons, of furniture, confectionery, crackers, cigars, lager beer, cordage, etc. has largely increased, and give every evidence of profitable results. Among the new and important enterprises inaugurated during the last six months of the year are the sash and blind factory of George Ott, which employs 20 men, the Groton Manufacturing Co. branch house (Messers. Perrigo & Avery and Chas. Perrigo & Co., of Groton, N.Y., proprietors) for the manufacture and sale of threshing machines, agricultural engines, etc.; the Davenport Vinegar and Pickling Works; and the Stearns & Smith Paint Company, for the manufacture of mixed paints. Each of the above, except the latter company, has erected extensive and substantial structures for the accommodation of their business.

Davenport is each year increasing its wholesale and jobbing trade; in 1881 there was $1,742,000 capital invested, the sales amounting to $8,273,500. The number of loaded cars received for the year 1881 was 15,875. The number forwarded was 17,176. By river the shipments show a total of 251,600 packages, consisting of potatoes, onions, grain, flour, oatmeal, etc., in sacks; barrels of sugar, vinegar, and oil, pumps, agricultural implements, merchandise, etc, in various shapes. A proportionate increase is confidently expected for the future Population, 23,570. Exp. U.S. and Am. Tel., W.U., Mail daily.

Click on the link below to retrieve the complete 1882 Iowa State Gazeteer and Business Directory: Davenport, Scott County, Iowa
1882 Iowa State Gazeteer and Business Directory: Davenport, Scott County, Iowa

Saturday, June 13, 2009

PETER BRUHN: Descendants Chart



PETER BRUHN: Descendants Chart

To download the expanded version of this descendants chart, click the link above and save the jpeg file to your computer

(File Size: 2.5 MB)

You can save the file to disk, then take the disk to a quick copy shop like Kinkos and print it on their plotter.

The PETER BRUHN Descendants Chart includes the associated LOHMANN and KOHRS family tree that follows some of our ancestry as far back as the 1500’s.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Pioneer City, Montana


Pioneer Ghost Town( photo taken by Grizzly, M. T. ) 1

NAME: Pioneer
COUNTY: Powell
ROADS: 2WD
GRID: 4
CLIMATE: Cold winter with snow and cool summer.
BEST TIME TO VISIT: Anytime.
COMMENTS: Not too far from Helena - UPDATE: Pioneer, located in Montana, no longer exists. I was told that a rancher who owns the property it stood on bulldozed it all to the ground to make room for his cattle to graze. This news was confirmed by several of the locals. Sad new!
REMAINS: A few ruins.2

The Pioneer Mining District was organized in 1866. Water was brought to the site by various ditches, all, eventually, controlled by cattle baron Conrad Kohrs. Kohrs used his control of the water to buy up claims in the area, and, eventually, control mining in Pioneer. The post office in Pioneer was opened in 1870. At the height of the mining activity, the town had a population of 500 people; four brewries; six saloons; two hotels and four general stores. When the claims started to play out in the 1880's, Chinese immigrants came in and worked the tailings. A mining engineer from Butte, Montana, Pat Wells, recognized the potential for dredging operations in Pioneer in 1929. Wells bought out all of Kohrs' holdings and commenced dredging in the area.2

There was little activity on Gold Creek until 1866, when the Pioneer mining district was organized. The placers of Pioneer Creek and its tributaries, French and Squaw gulches, soon overshadowed the initial placers on Gold Creek. Under laws of the new district, bar claims of 200 feet running back to the summit of the hill could be made. In 1867, the Pioneer Company began using hydraulics on the bars. Although no rush ensued, mining activity picked up and the population of the Pioneer district rose to a high of 1000. Most of the population was concentrated in the new camp of Yam Hill near Batterton Bar.3

Lack of water was more of a problem than the apparent lack of gold. In 1868 or 1869 Conrad Kohrs and others, formed the Rock Creek Ditch Company, to build a 16 mile canal to deliver water from Rock Creek to the Pioneer, Willow Creek, and Pikes Peak districts. The system initially delivered water to the Gold Hill terraces; the first terrace to be worked was the slope descending down to Pikes Peak Creek. These terraces contained rich gold deposits. Several hundred men worked the placers and a reported $140,000 was recovered in a single season from a pit on Batterton Bar. By 1870, it was estimated that $20,000,000 in placer gold had been taken from the gulches (Pardee 1951; Wolle 1963).3

The Pioneer district never rivaled the other major strikes of Montana, but just the same the district flourished all through the 1870s. New placer deposits were discovered and developed at French Gulch, Squaw Gulch, Woods Flat and Wilson's Bar. By 1874 the richer parts of the terraces had been worked, but new deposits were discovered at Pioneer Bar and Ballard Hill. As these placers grew, the town of Yam Hill became deserted and a new town of Pioneer City began to grow. It has been estimated that over a million dollars of gold dust (at $20.67 per ounce) was removed from the Pioneer Bar in the late 1870s and early 1880s (Pardee 1951; Wolle 1963).3

References

1. Grizzly, M. T. Pioneer Ghost Town. Retrieved July 3, 2009 from http://www.flickr.com/photos/mtgrizzly/3004497236/

2. Ghost Towns. Retrieved June 13, 2009 from http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/mt/pioneer.html

3. Montana.gov. Abandoned Mine Program, aka Gold Creek. Retrieved June 13, 2009 from http://www.deq.state.mt.us/AbandonedMines/linkdocs/techdocs/163tech.asp