Straddling the Mississippi at its confluence with the Rock River, the Quad Cities—Moline and Rock Island, Illinois, and Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa—encompass an enormous sprawl of some 400,000 residents. While much of the cityscape is dominated by heavy industry, particularly on the Iowa side, points of interest are sprinkled throughout.
Along the river at the heart of the Quad Cities, adjacent to downtown Rock Island, is the former namesake of that city, now called Arsenal Island for the U.S. Army facility based there. Despite the look of the gatehouse at the southern entrance, the island is open to the public; besides an arsenal museum and Civil War cemeteries, there’s a very good Corps of Engineers visitors center (daily; free) on the island right next to Lock and Dam No. 15, where the operation of the locks can be seen from a penny-pitch away.
The first railroad bridge over the Mississippi linked Rock Island and Davenport in 1856. The railroad was promptly sued by a steamboat company whose craft was mortally attracted to the bridge piers. The plaintiffs argued that bridges violated their navigation rights; the defense lawyer’s elegantly simple—and successful—rebuttal was to claim that a person has as much right to cross a river as to travel upon it. That lawyer was Abraham Lincoln. Today the railroad crosses the river on the upper deck of the old iron Government Bridge, which swings open for the tows entering the locks; cars crossing between Rock Island and Davenport can ride the humming lower deck for free or take the modern concrete highway span below the dam for a 50-cent toll.
The Davenport Museum of Art (closed Mon.; 563/326-7804), at 1737 W. 12th Street, has a good regional collection featuring Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood, along with parodies of Wood’s most famous painting, American Gothic. Davenport is also home to the new River Music Experience (daily; $4; 563/326-1333), 131 W. 2nd Street, an interactive museum exploring the many different sorts of music that have grown up along the Missisippi River. Frequent, free live concerts are held on the plaza outside.
Davenport celebrates the music legacy of native son and cornetist Leon Beiderbecke with the annual Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Jazz Festival, held at the end of July. A statue of Bix stands along the river, next to wonderful old (circa 1930) John O’Donnell Stadium, where the minor-league Quad Cities River Bandits (tickets $3–6; 319/324-2032) play their home games. (Unless, of course, the Mississippi is flooding as it did in 2001, when the stadium spent the month of May underwater).
