Interstate 74 Bridge, Downtown Moline, I wireless Center, the town/city at evening, John Deere World Headquarters, a Velie Monocoupe in Quad City International Airport Interstate 74 Bridge, Downtown Moline, I wireless Center, the town/city at evening, John Deere World Headquarters, a Velie Monocoupe in Quad City International Airport Moline (/mo li n/ moh-leen) is a town/city located in Rock Island County, Illinois, United States.

With a populace of 43,977 in 2010, it is the biggest city in Rock Island County. Moline is one of the Quad Cities, along with neighboring East Moline and Rock Island in Illinois and the metros/cities of Davenport and Bettendorf in Iowa.

The Quad Cities has a populace estimate of 381,342. The town/city is the ninth-most populated town/city in Illinois outside of the Chicago Metropolitan Area.

The corporate command posts of Deere & Company is positioned in Moline, as was Montgomery Elevator, which was established and headquartered in Moline until 1997, when it was acquired by Kone Elevator, which has its U.S.

Quad City International Airport, Niabi Zoo, Black Hawk College, and the Quad Cities ground of Western Illinois University-Quad Cities.

Moline is a retail core for the Illinois Quad Cities, as South Park Mall and various big-box shopping plazas are positioned in the city.

Today, Moline's downtown again serves as one of the civic and recreational hubs of the Quad Cities; many affairs take place at the 12,000-seat i - Wireless Center (formerly known as The MARK of the Quad Cities) and at John Deere Commons.

Downtown Moline features hotels such as Radisson and Stoney Creek Inn, and commercial areas such as Bass Street Landing and the historic 5th Avenue.

The town/city of Moline is nestled beside and on a broad bluff situated between the banks of the Mississippi River and Rock River in Rock Island County, Illinois.

The city's highland areas are cut athwart by many deep ravines that break up the town/city into natural neighborhoods.

The town/city is bounded to the east by East Moline and to the west by Rock Island.

Moline and its neighboring communities inside the Quad Cities form the biggest urban region along the Mississippi River between Minneapolis to the north and St.

The region is served by four interstate highways: Interstate 74 (which runs directly through Moline, bisecting it in roughly equal halves), Interstate 280 (which serves as a ring road around the Quad Cities), Interstate 80 (which crosses the Mississippi River a several miles to the northeast of Moline), and Interstate 88 (which begins on the easterly border of the Quad Cities and terminates in Hillside, Illinois, near Chicago).

The Quad City International Airport, positioned on the southern fringe of the town/city to the south of the Rock River, is home to four commercial airlines providing non-stop flights to eight different cities.

Climate data for Quad Cities (Quad City International Airport), 1981 2010 normals, extremes 1871 present According to the Rock Island County Historical Society, the first more permanently settled inhabitants of the Moline region are thought to be the Sauk and Meskwaki Indians, who established the village of Saukenuk in 1720 along the Rock River not far from its confluence with the Mississippi.

When Charles Atkinson, one of the primary landowners in the area, was offered the choice of naming the town Moline ("City of Mills", from the French moulin, as suggested by a small-town surveyor P.H.

The town of Moline was incorporated on April 21, 1848 under Illinois state law and granted a charter for a trustee form of government. The same year, John Deere, the inventor of the self-scouring steel plow, relocated his steel plow business from Grand Detour, Illinois, to Moline.

Even with Moline's small size, Deere saw a several promising elements there: Moline's dam and coal deposits would furnish a good origin of power; Moline was near the other well-established suburbs of Stephenson (later retitled Rock Island) in Illinois and Davenport in Iowa; and Moline's access to the river would make shipping goods cost-efficient.

As Deere period his factories, Moline interval in region and population.

Sears came to Moline from the Northeast by way of Cairo, Illinois, and Atkinson, John W.

They brought a stern work ethic and controlled civic life; Moline, in contrast to its neighbors, was not a "shoot 'em up river-town." An article in the Moline Workman in 1854 noted that a "much duller town could not be scared up this side of Sleepy Hollow." Moline thriving large waves of immigrants from Sweden, who were believed to be family-minded, God-fearing, community-oriented workers who rarely went on strike. Many of these framers clearly envisioned a "Lowell on the Mississippi", after a primary industrial town/city of Massachusetts; Moline was marketed as a "Lowell of the West" to potential investors and immigrants.

As Moline interval around its mills and factories, and as its neighbor to the west, Rock Island, continued to expanded at a similar pace, the neighboring suburbs ran up against one another's borders mostly quickly.

In the mid-19th century, articles about "consolidation" were a daily feature in the Moline Workman and the Rock Island Advertiser; town/city leaders dreamed of the joint town/city becoming the biggest in the state. As small-town leaders sat down to discuss consolidation, however, disputes arose, with the most meaningful being which town/city would subsume the other.

As the governmental center of county and earliest settlement on the Illinois side, Rock Island argued that it should annex Moline; Moline, being more prosperous and better known nationally, wanted to keep its name.

Other points of conflict encompassed that Moline did not want to have to assume any of Rock Island's enhance debt; Rock Island feared that a union with Moline would drive down its property values; and the people of the two towns, representing different regions, classes, occupations and ethnicities, widely disagreed on primary political issues of the day.

Over time, John Deere period operations into other agricultural equipment, and Deere-affiliated factories working the bulk of Moline's workforce.

These include Dimock, Gould, and Co., Moline Pipe Organ Co., and Moline Furniture Works, to name a several.

In addition, a several pioneering automobile companies directed in the city, among them Moline Automobile Company, Moline Wagon Company, Stephens (a marque of the Moline Plow Company) and Velie Motors Corporation. During the last several decades of the 19th century, Moline had continued prosperity, expansion of the town/city to the southwest, west, and east along the Mississippi river, and a stronger relationship with neighboring communities.

The first buildings were equipped with heat in September 1897, and electricity first appeared in Moline in 1881 when John Deere & Co.

Work on an electric streetcar fitness soon followed, and inside the same decade, an intercity streetcar fitness linked Moline with Rock Island and Davenport.

Moline's streetcar system, the state's first and only the nation's third, was also Illinois's best for a number of years, with a minimal five-cent fare and an extensive coverage area. The state's first garbage compilation fitness was also advanced in Moline in 1894.

Moline was re-chartered as a town/city under a mayor/aldermanic form of government on April 21, 1872, and John Deere, the longtime resident and entrepreneur, was defeated by Daniel Wheelock, a newcomer, for the first mayorship. Belgian and Swedish immigrants began arriving in a huge influx, settling into a neighborhood on the bluffs in the southwestern part of the city.

Moline was a successful, if somewhat boring, turn-of-the-20th-century city.

Even with the occasional conflicts between native-born and immigrant leaders, the Puritanical, serious temperament of the town/city had not changed in the half-century since Moline's founding.

The town/city became known as "Proud Moline" to its neighbors, a somewhat derisive nickname that touched on Moliners' sometimes haughty, holier-than-thou attitude.

The electric streetcar fitness expanded as the town/city did, and by 1915 there were over 45 miles (72 km) of paved town/city streets and 75 miles (121 km) of sidewalks. Recognizing a need for more recreational space, Riverside Park was established in 1902 near present-day 34th Street on the waterfront, and the Tri-City Railway Company opened Prospect Park in the southern part of the town/city in 1911 as an amusement park. The widespread prosperity thriving wave upon wave of immigrants, and Moline's immigrant workers often sent for their extended families in the Old Country to join them in America.

By the 1920s and 1930s, the appearance of East Moline in Illinois and Bettendorf in Iowa reflected the further expansion and diversification of the region.

Moline emerged as a retail, transportation, and cultural core on the Illinois side of the river.

Louis. With federal funds from the Works Progress Administration, the Iowa-Illinois Memorial Bridge, a single-span, two-lane highway bridge assembled for automotive traffic, was concluded between Moline and Davenport in 1935 and quickly became the preferred health for interstate transit. A bustling retail zone emerged in downtown Moline, anchored by merchants like the New York Store, Sears & Roebuck, and JC Penney. The economic reliance on the farm implement trade continued as Deere & Company emerged to turn into the biggest agricultural machinery business in the world.

Colonel Charles Deere Wiman, the President of Deere & Company, re-affirmed Deere's commitment to the Quad-Cities region by building a several new factories in Moline, East Moline, Silvis, and Milan in Illinois and Davenport in Iowa.

Moline witnessed a continued populace increase after World War II with the culmination of "Molette", a subdivision of mass-produced starter homes selling for $5,000 each.

Molette was the first Moline neighborhood produced on a mass scale and one of the biggest single-unit housing projects in the Midwest at the time. Near Molette on 41st Street, the Defense Department funded an $800,000 housing universal known as Springbrook Courts, which served as housing for Rock Island Arsenal employees before being converted into a non-military-affiliated enhance housing universal managed by the Moline Housing Authority. It was in this time that one of the primary factors shaping the undivided layout of Moline first came into play the rough topography of the inland bluffs.

As a elected plan of Moline later stated, "the topography has had a decided influence upon the expansion and evolution of the town/city .

The customary 'grid' type subdivision planning so common to most Midwestern metros/cities is impractical of adaptation when looking at a map of the present city.

The layout of the town/city was decidedly improved by the approval of the city's first zoning ordinance and the creation of a Zoning Board in 1929.

Moline became the first Illinois town/city outside of the Chicago region to adopt this tool of urban planning.

Although the town/city did not suffer amid the 1950s and 1960s, those decades marked a departure from the city's earlier trajectory of unceasing upward growth.

The zoning ordinance drawn up in 1929 predicted a populace of 70,000 80,000 for Moline in 1980, but Moline actually only attained 45,000 by that year. The major lured for Moline, and the Quad-Cities at large, in this reconstructionwas the area's lack of a strong nationwide identity.

The Moline Association of Commerce marketed the Quad-Cities under the motto of "Joined together, as the boroughs of New York City" throughout the 1940s and 1950s, with Moline as the "nucleus", but several corporations bought into the analogy.

Louis, and Kansas City", the region remained mostly unheard of. Existing companies, including John Deere, Alcoa, Caterpillar, Case, and International Harvester all continued to expanded and grew operations in the area, but no real diversification of small-town trade occurred; Moline remained steadfastly dependent on the farm implement trade for its economic solvency, a dependency that later proved disastrous.

This southward trend in retail occurred despite the extension of Interstate 74 through the town/city and athwart the river on the Iowa-Illinois Memorial Bridge in 1974, an transit framework improvement that made Moline's downtown more accessible and brought thousands of commuters and travelers through Moline each day.

Moline's economic vitality was sapped as the agricultural crisis crippled the farm implement industry, the force which had shaped the evolution of Moline since the city's earliest days.

Even Deere & Company moved most of its factory operations out of Moline, though it maintained its world command posts in Moline in a specially commissioned building that was designed by Eero Saarinen.

The Le - Claire Hotel, the tallest building in Moline and a longtime motif of the city's richness and prestige, closed its doors.

From 2007 2009, the arena was home to a minor league hockey team, the Flames, before to the franchise's relocation to Abbotsford, British Columbia. In the late 1990s, John Deere Commons was built, a multimillion-dollar entertainment and tourism complex including a hotel, restaurants, offices, a John Deere Collector's Center (located in a re-created 1950s John Deere dealership), the John Deere Store, and the John Deere Pavilion, a tourist center highlighting the history of agriculture in the Midwest.

Downtown Moline also plays host to affairs of county-wide importance such as Taste of the Quad Cities, Race for the Cure, the Quad City Marathon, and the Lighting of the Commons.

The new Kone Building in Downtown Moline, Illinois The current projects include a new nine-story building for Kone Elevator's American Headquarters (formerly Montgomery Elevator) and its nearly 250 Quad Cities' region employees.

Other projects include new lofts that opened up in 2011, and the I-74 Corridor Project is prepared to build 3 auxiliary lanes from Avenue of the Cities passed 53rd Street in Davenport, with a new I-74 Bridge spanning 4 lanes in each direction, also an observation deck overlooking the Mississippi River, assembly date is still unknown. In 2012, Western Illinois University-Quad Cities opened the new river front campus, an $18.2 million first phase of the universal has 60,000 square feet, making it the only college ground along the Mississippi River.

Amtrak is set to bring service back to the town/city with a Moline to Chicago line sometime in 2017.

More projects are being planned, all a part of the city's "Moline Centre" downtown plan. According to the City's 2009 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the biggest employers in the town/city are: 7 City of Moline, Illinois 402 Through the Neighborhood Partnership Program, the City of Moline has established nine city-sponsored neighborhood associations and is working diligently to form more.

Downtown / Moline Centre: Moline's downtown, now known as Moline Centre, is the historic region bounded approximately by 12th and 34th Streets and the Mississippi River and 6th Avenue.

The region has long been home to Moline's City Hall, its original, and now vacant, Carnegie-sponsored enhance library, and other civic establishments.

A primary retail center in the 1950s and 1960s, today the region is home to the John Deere Commons development, including the John Deere Pavilion and the i - Wireless Center (where thousands come each year to watch shows, concerts, and sporting affairs) and to various other restaurants and entertainment venues.

Floreciente: This neighborhood, stretching below the bluff along the Mississippi River from downtown to the east and Rock Island to the west, is the traditional home to the city's increasing Latino population, many of whom hail from the central state of Guanajuato in Mexico.

Olde Towne was the traditional home of Moline's large Belgian population.

According to the Belgian Culture Center, Moline once had the biggest Belgian populace in the United States and now has the second largest.

The region is filled with a range of rental and owner-occupied homes and is also home to a vibrant retail center called City Line Plaza.

Belgium maintains an honorary consulate in Moline positioned in this neighborhood.

Named after the home of Charles Deere, Overlook sits on the bluff above Moline Centre.

The neighborhood is also home to One Moline Place, a new evolution featuring luxury single-family homes, townhomes, and condominiums which is the former site of the Moline Public and Moline Lutheran Hospitals.

Karsten's Park: This neighborhood is centered on the town/city park with the same name between 5th and 6th Streets and 22nd and 23rd Avenues.

Wharton Field House used to host the Quad City Thunder CBA Basketball before the Mark of the Quad Cities (now the i - Wireless Center) opened, and was once home to the NBA's Tri-Cities Blackhawks.

Wildwood: Just before the city's arterial, 7th Street, passes downhill into the Rock River Valley lies the neighborhood of Wildwood.

Prospect Park: This is a name for the broad region south of Avenue of the Cities between I-74 to the east and 7th Street to the west.

Much like the other 16th Street neighborhoods, the neighborhood to the west of 16th Street (also known as Stewartville) is generally more upscale than that east of 16th (an region known as Greater Tartan Oaks); however, the far west and east fringes both contain newer large homes assembled in the 1970s 1990s.

The neighborhood is also home to Quad City Music Guild, which offers wonderful musicals year-round.

Park Hill is one of Moline's earliest neighborhoods, with many of its homes assembled for the workers of John Deere.

Villa Park today is the region lying to the east of I-74 and to the south of Avenue of the Cities.

Rockview Estates: This neighborhood is west of 41st Street and between John Deere Road and Moline High School.

The neighborhood sets on the ridges above the Rock River Valley and some apartment buildings take favor of this location, although recent evolution along the John Deere Road Corridor, including Wal-Mart and Lowe's, has left the natural beauty of the Rock River wetlands largely destroyed.

There are no commercial establishments in the area, although the Moline Public Library is close-by on 41st Street.

It is a two story white home with 4 large columns. Homewood is also home to the Playcrafter's Barn Theater, a long-running home for improve theater. Homewood, Wildwood, and Heritage are among the more heavily wooded neighborhoods in the city, and consequently, both suffered heavy damage in the derecho which swept through Moline on July 21, 2008 around 6:00 - A.M.

With its position on the southern fringe of the town/city it is among the quieter neighborhoods in the city.

Next to Walton Hills lies Millennium Park, the city's newest park, which is jointly maintained with East Moline.

The John Deere Pavilion in Moline Moline is served by Moline School District No.

The precinct educates approximately 7,500 students in twelve elementary schools, two middle schools (John Deere Middle School and Woodrow Wilson Middle School) and one high school (Moline High School).

Moline's noteworthy parks include Riverside Park, home to the Riverside Family Aquatic Center and to a busy baseball and tennis complex; Prospect Park, home to the Quad City Music Guild; and the Green Valley Sports Complex.

The Department also maintains the Ben Butterworth Parkway, a four-mile (6 km)-long scenic trail along the Mississippi River running between downtown Moline to the west and East Moline to the east.

Moline's i Wireless Center is presently home to the Quad City Mallards, a minor league experienced hockey team in the ECHL.

The Quad Cities are also home to the Quad City River Bandits, the Single A Midwest League affiliates of the Houston Astros.

Dayton Moore, General Manager Kansas City Chiefs; lived in Moline The Dispatch, formerly the Daily Dispatch, is the traditional paper of the town/city and also serves Coal Valley, East Moline, and other communities to the east.

Official rain records for the Quad Cities kept at the Weather Bureau Office (WBO) in Davenport, Iowa from July 1871 to December 1931, alternating between Quad City Int'l (KMLI) and the Davenport WBO from January 1932 to 17 February 1937, and remaining at KMLI since 18 February 1937.

"Station Name: IL MOLINE QUAD CITY INTL AP".

Jae Bryson, "Moline follows industrious path", Quad City Times, Apr 30, 1998, p.

Roald Tweet, The Quad Cities: An American Mosaic, Rock Island, Illinois: East Hall Press, 1996, p.

"Moline: Its Interests and Industries", Promotional pamphlet and map, Moline: Porter Printing Company, 1888.

"Things at Moline", The Rock Island Advertiser, Rock Island, Illinois, May 4, 1854.

Newspaper clipping from The Rock Island Union, Rock Island, Illinois, Aug.

"New homes in Moline what our laboring men do with their cash", Rock Island Union, Rock Island, Illinois, July 15, 1868.

Jonathan Turner, "Moline authors chronicle 'City of Mills,'" The Moline Dispatch.

Jane Sturgis, Moline: The Golden Years, In fulfillment of Art 400 - A, Tennessee State University, Nashville, 1987.

Julie Jensen, "Moline: Of Mills and Mansions " Quad-City Times, Davenport, Iowa, Feb.

"Moline's $886,000 Defense Housing Project from the Air", The Daily Dispatch, Moline, Illinois, Nov.

A Comprehensive Plan for the City of Moline, Illinois, and its Environs, Moline Planning Commission, City of Moline: Moline, Illinois, March 1958.

Moline Zoning Commission Final Report, Moline, Illinois, June 17, 1929.

Moline Zoning Commission Final Report, p.

"Moline, Illinois, presents the urbane Quad-Cities", Moline Chamber of Commerce, Jan.

Doug Anderson, "Downtown key to evolution of Moline growth", The Daily Dispatch, Moline, Illinois, July 21, 1969.

"City of Moline, Illinois Official Website Moline Centre Main Street".

"City of Moline, Illinois; Comprehensive Financial Report; Year Ended December 31, 2010".

Flashback Moline Retro Moline, Illinois Quad Cities and encircling urbane region of Iowa and Illinois

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Moline, Illinois - Cities in Illinois - Cities in Rock Island County, Illinois - Cities in the Quad Cities - Illinois populated places on the Mississippi River - Populated places established in 1848 - Quad Cities