Klemme Auto Company Advertisement Davenport 1911

 

The Davenport Democrat and Leader. February 5, 1911.

Here's another great advertisement featuring early automobiles from 1911. Do you think every car they built was a convertible? or did they just look good in the ad?

Klemme Auto Company was located on Brady Street in Davenport, Iowa, and carried Buick and Oldsmobile vehicles. 

Velie Motors Corporation Advertisement 1917

 

The Daily Times. May 31, 1917.

This advertisement for the Velie Motors Corporation really caught my eye. It has a great picture of the manufacturing plant, across the river from Davenport in Moline, Illinois, and look at the lines on that car.. It's a classic. At $1185, it would cost just over $30,000 in today's money.

And you can be sure the cars were hand-crafted. They produced just fifteen cars a day. That's 450 cars a month if they worked seven days a week, or roughly 5,000 cars per year.

Black Hawk's Watch Tower Outing Resort Moline

(The Daily Times. June 24, 1905)

This advertisement for Black Hawk's Watch Tower amusement park in Moline, Illinois, was published in The Daily Times on June 24, 1905.

Free admission. Free movies. Free concerts. And a roller coaster to compete with the new one at Suburban Park in Davenport. I didn't see a price listed here, but from what I've seen elsewhere, rides were 25 cents and the lines were out of this world.

Roller Coaster at Suburban Island Davenport

(Davenport Democrat and Leader. April 9, 1905)

The Davenport Democrat and Leader printed this picture of the roller coaster that was to be erected at Suburban Park in April 1905. The roller coaster was purchased from the Ingersol Park Company in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania at a cost of $16,500.

The coaster was seventy feet high and ninety feet wide, and had a total length of nearly 300 feet. The paper said readers could view three cities from the top of the roller coaster. 

It was to be erected north and west of the pavillion and was expected to be in operation by June 1.

Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show Visits Muscatine 1896

 

Buffalo Bill Cody brought his Wild West show to Muscatine in October 1896. Twenty thousand people crowded the streets on the morning of October 1, watching the parade of characters; 16,000 attended the afternoon performance.

The show was big and fast, with over 500 horses and riders from different countries. Native American performers, Mexican riders, and Russian Cossacks all took part. Most people in the crowd had seen nothing like it.

The shooting act led the show.

Annie Oakley stepped out and hit target after target. Small targets. Moving targets. She worked quick and clean. The crowd stayed quiet while she shot, then broke into applause.

Johnny Baker followed. He fired from the back of a horse running at full speed. Shots came in rhythm with the horse’s stride. It was one of the show’s most talked-about acts.

Colonel John W. Rankin 17th Iowa Infantry Civil War

 

(Colorized image from Iowa Colonels and Regiments by A. A. Stuart. 1865)

John W. Rankin helped raise the 17th Iowa Infantry in 1862 and went in as one of its field officers. They got little time to settle in. By fall, they were in Mississippi. At Iuka in September, the fighting came quick in broken ground. Lines blurred. Men fired at shapes more than targets.

A few weeks later came Corinth. October 4 hit hard. Confederate attacks drove into the line and shook it. The 17th Iowa took heavy losses. Parts of the regiment gave ground. Some were captured. Still, enough held for the army to recover and push back. Rankin was there at Corinth, where the fighting broke and reformed under pressure… and at Champion’s Hill, where Grant later wrote the battle was “stubbornly contested at every point.”

In 1863, they moved with Grant into Mississippi. Jackson fell after a quick fight. Then came Champion Hill on May 16. That was the one that decided things. The ground was rough. The fight didn’t move cleanly. Units went in, stalled, shifted, and went in again. The 17th stayed in it as the line bent and pushed forward.

After that came the Big Black River and then Vicksburg. The work changed there. No charges. Just digging, holding, and waiting under fire. They spent weeks in the trenches. Heat, dirt, sickness. Rankin stayed with the regiment through it, part of the long grind that ended when Vicksburg finally gave up in July 1863.

A lot of these details—the letters, the small moments, the things soldiers actually said—rarely make it into the big histories.

 

I’ve been pulling more of them together into Iowa In The Civil War, if you want to go deeper.

 

And if you just like reading this kind of thing, there’s a donation box on the site. No pressure. Just glad you’re here.

5th Iowa Infantry In The Civil War

Colonel Samuel Rice

The 5th Iowa Infantry formed at Burlington in July 1861. Most of the men had never seen combat. Within a year, they would. Early on, the regiment was led by Colonel Samuel A. Rice, a Burlington lawyer who brought order to a green command. By the fall of 1862, they were in Mississippi with Rosecrans, facing Confederate forces at Iuka and Corinth.

At Iuka, the fight came fast and close. Thick timber broke the lines. Units lost contact. Reports from the field describe heavy fire and confusion. Grant later wrote that “the enemy made a stubborn resistance.” The 5th Iowa held its ground and took its first hard losses.

Corinth followed weeks later. On October 4, Confederate attacks hit the Union line hard. The 5th Iowa went forward in the counterattack. They helped drive the enemy back. In the advance, they captured the colors of the 40th Mississippi and took prisoners. Rosecrans reported that the Union forces “drove the enemy from every position.” Rice had the regiment in hand during the fight, keeping it steady as the line bent and then pushed forward.

In 1863, the regiment moved with Grant into Mississippi. At Raymond, the fight stretched across fields and woods. The Confederates held at first, then gave way under pressure. Grant again noted the resistance, calling it “stubborn.” Two days later, the army took Jackson after a quick fight.