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1865-1895—The Development years

• April 10, 1866-- The remaining 177 Sioux prisoners at Camp McClellan are released and sent to Santee, Nebraska.

• June 6, 1866-- The State of Iowa takes over the Iowa Soldier’s Orphan’s Home as a tax-supported institution in order to provide financial support and protect the rights of the children, who become wards of the state.

• June 23, 1867—The first commencement exercises of Griswold College take place.

• July 21, 1867—The cornerstone of St. Mary’s Church is laid at 516 Fillmore Street

• September 10, 1867—The first train from Davenport on the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific line reaches Des Moines.

• February 12, 1868—An ice gorge slams into the Bridge, moving a span off the pier.  Five steamboats and barges are wrecked and the Mississippi rose 8 feet in 2 hours.

• March 16, 1868—A tornado hits the river, destroying the Railroad Bridge draw.

• July 16, 1868—A. L. Mossman swims from Perry Street in Davenport to the ferry landing in Rock Island, Illinois, in 17 minutes.

• 1868—Grammar School Number 5 (later Monroe School) is built at 1615 West Third Street

• 1868—The Schuetzen Geseltschaft, or shooting society, forms.  The society operates a private park called Schuetzen Park, which later becomes a gathering place for German-Americans in Davenport

• 1869—The Academy of Immaculate Conception, which moved to the corner of Eighth and Main Streets in Davenport after the Civil War, is formally chartered

• 1869—Mercy Hospital opens its first building on the former site of the Academy of Immaculate Conception

• November 21, 1870—A regular passenger train route opens up the St. Louis from Davenport.  The 248-mile trip only takes 11 hours.

• February 5, 1871—The first recorded marriage of the Jewish faith in Davenport joins Isaac Rothschild of Davenport and Rosa Auerbach of Rock Island.  Rabbi Marc Moses presides.

• 1871—Grammar School Number 8 (later Harrison School) is built at West Fourth and Ripley Streets

• 1871—The Unitarian Church is built on 10^th and Perry Streets in Davenport.  One of the ministers is S. S. Hunting.

• 1871—St. Elizabeth’s Hospital for the insane, a part of Mercy Hospital, is constructed

• 1872—The bridge between Davenport and Arsenal Island is replaced with a double-deck Whipple truss bridge, with a steam-powered lift span to let steamboats pass.  Freight trains begin using the bridge one year later.

• 1872—Phebe Sudlow is appointed principal of Davenport High School.  She is the first woman in the country to be principal of a public high school.

• May 26, 1873—The Davenport Glucose Company is organized.

• 1873—The congregation of the First Methodist Church moves from its old location on Fifth and Brady to its new church on Ninth and Brady.

• 1874—Phebe Sudlow is hired as Superintendent of Davenport City Schools, becoming the first female superintendent in the country.

• 1875—A new high school, designed by Thomas W. McClelland, is opened on the block between Seventh and Eight Streets, and Rock Island and Iowa Streets.   The offices of the school board move into the old high school, on Sixth and Main Streets.

• December 16, 1877—A one hundred foot single deck span on the island side of the Government Bridge is broken by a derrick attached to a freight train.

• 1877—Phebe Sudlow is elected the first woman president of the Iowa Teacher’s Association.

• 1878—Grammar School Number 10 (later Polk School) is built at West 8^th and Marquette Streets.

• 1878—The temperance newspaper The Blue Ribbon News is established in Davenport.  It later evolves into the Northwestern News, and is politically aligned with the Republican Party

• July 19, 1879—The Davenport Glucose Company burns to the ground.

• 1879—The Magdalen Hospital for unmarried mothers, a part of Mercy Hospitals, is opened.

• circa 1880—Davenport begins to pave its city streets with brick.

• September 29, 1882—The Hebrew Ladies Aid Society of Davenport is incorporated.

• October 3, 1882—D.C. Eldridge dies.

• 1882—The Davenport Catholic Diocese is created

• 1882—St. Ambrose College is established.  The first three years of classes are held at St. Marguerite’s Catholic Church

• 1882—The Iowa Messenger Catholic newspaper is founded by Thomas and Fred Sharon

• 1882--The Clarissa C. Cook Home for the Friendless, a home for elderly women, is constructed in west Davenport.

• 1882—The Koehler and Lange Brewery files a lawsuit against the Iowa State prohibition amendment passed this year.  The Brewery manages to overturn the amendment on a technicality.

• 1882—St. Paul’s English Lutheran Church is organized in Davenport, and a church built at 14^th and Main Streets

• 1882—Wages of the Davenport city fire company are now paid by the city, making the firemen city employees.

• 1883—The first recorded appendectomy in the United States is performed in the new surgery room at Mercy Hospital

• 1884—Mayor Ernst Claussen passes a city ordinance allowing the legal sale of ‘new varieties of beverage’, effectively negating the state temperance statutes of 1884.

• February 28, 1885—George L’oste Davenport, son of Colonel George Davenport, dies in Saint Augustine, Florida, at the age of 67.

• May 20, 1885—The Davenport City Council adopts an 8-hour working day for city employees.

• 1885—The Davenport Park Commission is organized.

• 1885—Temple Emmanuel is constructed on Ripley Street

• 1885—The first incandescent street lamps are installed in Davenport

• 1885—The cornerstone is laid for Ambrose Hall, the first building of St. Ambrose College.  The site for the college is Noel’s Grove, ten acres along West Locust Street.

• 1885—Kemper Hall, a boys’ preparatory school for Griswold College, opens

• 1885—The Episcopalian Diocese of Iowa establishes St. Katherine’s School, a girl’s school, in Cambria House, the home of John L. Davies on the corner of Ripley and Fourth Streets.

• 1886—The Northwestern News is renamed the Davenport Daily Times

• November 9, 1887--Lightning strikes the main building of the Iowa Soldiers’ Orphans’ Home at 3 o’clock in the morning.  The building burns to the ground, but the thirty staff members and children who were sleeping there escaped unharmed. Credit is given to the ‘cottage system’ (separate housing for small groups of children) that the fire did not spread and that all 350 resident children were not left homeless.

• 1887—The Davenport Democrat newspaper buys the Davenport Gazette newspaper.

• 1887—The Lend-A-Hand Club, for young ladies living and working away from home, is formed in Davenport

• 1887—Construction on the Masonic Temple at Third and Main Streets is completed.

• May 11, 1888—Rock Island’s waterpower dam is destroyed by flood.

• May 16, 1888—The Mississippi River reaches its highest recorded flood mark of 18 feet, seven inches.

• August 11, 1888—Davenport’s first electric streetcar is tested on Brady Street hill.  The car carries between forty and fifty people easily up the grade.

• November 7, 1888—Police patrols are initiated in Davenport.

• December 24, 1888—Davenport, Rock Island, and Moline are united by streetcar lines.  Cars begin running across bridges the same day.

• 1888—The Central Turngemeinde Society (the Turners) moves into the new Turner Hall at 3^rd and Scott Streets

• February 8, 1889—The first call for police assistance under a new telephone patrol system is routed from the box on Front Street  (there is no surviving record on the nature of the emergency).

• November 15, 1889—The Davenport Art Association organizes at the studio of Bianca Wheeler.

• 1889—Construction is finished on the new $150,000 Scott County Courthouse on West 4^th Street

• 1889—The Ancient Order of Hibernians buy the old Christian Church on Brady, across from St. Anthony’s Catholic Church, remodel it, and rename it Hibernian Hall.

• 1889—The Catholic Diocese chooses St. Marguerite’s Church on East Tenth Street as the site for a new Cathedral.  St. Marguerite’s is torn down, and some of the bricks are used in the construction of  new houses on 7^th Street.

• January 9, 1890—Bailey Davenport, younger son of Colonel George Davenport, dies.

• 1890—Calvary Baptist Church on Fourteenth and Perry Streets is dedicated.

• March 15, 1891—the Davenport Crematorium is officially opened with the cremation of Otto Kochert.

• September 19, 1891—The Davenport Gas Company lights the city of Davenport through electricity.

• 1891—George M. Bechtel opens in Davenport one of Iowa’s first investment bond houses

• 1891—Sacred Heart Cathedral on East Tenth Street is dedicated.  Because of its location in a predominately Irish neighborhood, the church is nicknamed “Cork Hill Cathedral”

• 1892—Construction is completed on the new Post Office at Perry and Fourth Streets, which is the first federal building in Davenport

• 1892—Grammar School Number 9 (later Tyler School) is built at East High Street and Grand Avenue

• November 29, 1894—Water is allowed into the first section of the Hennepin Canal

• April 17, 1895—Hennepin Canal opens its locks to allow boats to come through.

•  April 28, 1895—St. Luke’s hospital opens at 121 West 8^th Street

•  September 18, 1895--The first chiropractic adjustment was performed by Daniel David Palmer.  The patient, Harvey Lillard, had been hard of hearing for 17 years, but stated that his condition was much improved by chiropractic treatments.  This date is celebrated as Founder's Day by Palmer College of Chiropractic

• September 30, 1895—St. Luke’s hospital opens a training school for nurses on the premises.

• 1895—Kemper Hall, the boys’ preparatory school of Griswold College, closes.