The New Student's Reference Work/Davenport

Davenport, a city of Iowa ranking third in the state in population, is located on the Mississippi, 183 miles west of Chicago.  The site was formerly occupied by an Indian village, and was visited by Père Marquette and Louis Joliet in 1673.  The city was incorporated in 1838, and the first school was established in the same year.  The population, which was 1,848 in 1850, had increased to 43,028 in 1910.  Davenport is largely a manufacturing city, the capital invested in manufactures being $15,000,000, and the men employed 8,000.  The value of the output, in 1909, in lumber, metal-wheels, glucose-products, wagons, cigars, pearl-buttons and other manufactures was $18,801,842.

Davenport is at the western terminus of the Illinois and Mississippi Canal, and is on six railways.  It has all the institutions and agencies of the most advanced cities.  Among the public institutions are Iowa Soldiers’ Orphans’ Home, C. C. Cook Home for the Friendless, St. Vincent’s Orphanage and the Home for Old Farmers.  A $75,000 public library has been erected through the munificence of Andrew Carnegie.  The city has five semipublic libraries.

Davenport has five miles of river frontage and a model water-service with the largest filter-plant in the world.  It is the see-city of the Roman Catholic and Episcopal denominations.  The museum of the Academy of Sciences has the largest collection of relics of mound-builders extant.  Its public-school system is up-to-date in every respect, and has a large enrollment.  Other schools are St. Katharines Hall; St. Ambrose College; the Academy of the Immaculate Conception; and parochial and private schools.

Davenport forms with Rock Island and Moline a community of 91,000 people whose social interests and commercial advantages are like those of the citizens of one place.