The H. C Kahl home on Marquette Street Hill in Davenport as it looked in 1913. Kahl, vice president of the Walsh-Kahl Construction Company, built the home at a cost of $200,000.
(Colorized photograph from the Davenport Democrat and Leader. December 29, 1913)
Before he was president, Herbert Hoover was a
mining engineer. A numbers man. A logistics wizard who’d made a fortune digging
minerals out of the ground on three continents. Then, in 1914, war exploded
across Europe.
Thousands of Americans were stranded with no cash
and no way home.
Hoover organized emergency loans. Chartered ships.
Set up offices. Within weeks, he’d helped get tens of thousands of Americans
out of Europe.
He became chairman of the Commission for Relief in
Belgium after it had been overrun by Germany. Millions of civilians faced
starvation. Britain’s navy blockaded food shipments. Germany occupied the land.
Hoover negotiated with both sides to move grain across oceans and through
battle lines.
Under his direction, ships crossed the Atlantic
loaded with wheat and flour. Warehouses rose. Distribution networks spread
across occupied territories. The commission fed millions of people every day.
When America entered the war in 1917, Woodrow
Wilson made Hoover the U.S. Food Administrator, a post he held from 1917 to
1919.
Hoover didn’t want heavy-handed rationing laws. He
believed in voluntary cooperation. So he made food patriotic.
In October 1916, every eye in Iowa was focused on the World
Series and Babe Ruth. Farmers leaned on fence posts. Barbers argued over box
scores.
Telegraph wires hummed like angry bees. Out there in Boston, a thick-armed kid with a mean fastball was turning October into his own private carnival.
Ruth wasn’t the Sultan of Swat yet. He was just a left-handed wrecking crew in wool flannel, chewing up the Brooklyn Robins. In Game 2, he worked fast, jaw set, eyes flat. Brooklyn hitters swung like men chopping at ghosts. Boston won. No fuss.
Game 5 was where things got strange. Fourteen innings. No lights. No mercy. The crowd sagged and swayed. Pitch after pitch, Ruth kept firing, as if he’d tapped into some private reservoir of stubborn American madness. When it ended—scoreless for Brooklyn—he’d stacked up nearly 30 straight World Series innings without allowing a run.
Iowans read the numbers in the morning papers and shook their heads. They didn’t know they were witnessing the early rumble of a coming storm that would blow the fences down and change the sport forever.
Babe Ruth would be an unstoppable force in the game.
Ray Fisher, 18, was the leading picture for the Des Moines Federal League in 1916. When he pitched for the MsCurmin Drug team, he won twelve straight games, averaged twelve strikeouts, and five hits per game.
He got his start in the West Des Moines Sunday School League, where he played for the South Des Moines Methodist team. In 1916, he was given a trial with the local Western League Club.
(Picture from the Des Moines Register. February 20, 1916)
Iowa looks harmless.
Wide skies. Gravel roads. Farmhouses spaced just far enough apart that nothing ever seems to happen. The place where people leave doors unlocked and believe evil belongs somewhere else. 
Crescent Macaroni and Cracker Company
Flames gutted the
Crescent Macaroni and Cracker Company on January 25, 1915.
The plant at Fifth and Iowa Streets in Davenport, Iowa, was the largest macaroni company in the country. The company that employed 250 laborers and 35 salespeople had its best year in 1914, requiring employees to work overtime most of the year.
The fire broke out shortly after 8:15 p.m.
Night watchman George Montz said it started in front of oven number one on the west side of the plant. He turned in the alarm at 8:16, but nearly twenty minutes passed before the first fire company arrived.
Charles Nigg of Maquoketa, Iowa, pushed a wheel barrow called the Iowa Special from Maquoketa to the American Legion convention in San Antonio, Texas in 1928. He served in the Spanish American War with his two brothers. (picture from Des Moines Tribune. October 11, 1928)
The Des Moines Register (October 7, 1917) published these pictures of Iowa soldiers at Camp Dodge, training for overseas duty in World War I. It's an interesting look at army life.
On October 7, 1917, the Des Moines Register published these photograpghs of the Villisca Axe Murder house and some of the victims and suspects. I hadn't seen a few of these before so I thought they were worth a look.
The Villisca Axe Murder house as it appeared in 1917.
But for a stretch of time, it had an inn sitting right at its center.
Nicholas Fejervary built the mansion in the 1800s,
up on the bluff with a clear view of the Mississippi. It wasn’t tucked away. It
was meant to be seen.
In 1902, his daughter gave the property to the
city of Davenport. The mansion became an inn.
And Davenport used it.
Weddings filled the rooms. Clubs held meetings
there. Community dinners ran long into the evening. If something important was
happening in town, it was happening at the Fejervary Inn. People dressed up,
shook hands, and looked out over the river like it were part of the evening.
It didn’t last. By the 1930s, the building had
been torn down.
Now it’s just park. Grass under your shoes. Trees
overhead. A regular afternoon.
But once upon a time, this wasn’t just green
space. It was where the entire town turned out for events and celebrations.
