Fifty Years Ago + 

when the writer first visited this most beautiful Island in the Mississippi river, then and now known as Rock Island, the ground on which the triplet cities of Davenport, Rock Island, and Moline now stands, was covered with prairie grass, and apparently a sterile waste as regards to the two former, whilst the latter was principally covered with timber. Now how changed! Then the site of Davenport was claimed to be the most beautiful on the west bank of the Mississippi, between St. Paul and St. Louis by Black Hawk and his confreres, who had traveled up and down the river in canoes, whilst his judgment was confirmed by thousands of passengers who viewed it from steamboats in after years. + 