The City of Davenport, Iowa
This beautiful city now covers that “Section of land opposite Rock Island” that was donated by treaty to Antoine LeClair by the Sacs and Foxes, and also three or four more sections. At that time it was wholly uninhabited, the Foxes having removed their village from that point some three years before. As a town site it was regarded by strangers and travelers on steamboats as the most beautiful west of the Mississippi between St. Louis and St. Paul, and now, with its twenty-three thousand inhabitants, elegant residences, magnificent public buildings, fine churches, schoolhouses, extensive manufactories, and large business blocks, it stands unrivalled as a beautiful city. It has ten miles of street railroads, affording easy access to all parts of the city. It has two daily papers, the Gazette and Democrat, (morning and evening) both ably conducted; and also a German daily and two weeklies. The river is spanned by an elegant bridge that was built at the cost of nearly a million dollars, which is used by the various railroads from East to West, and has a roadway for teams and pedestrians.