Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show Comes To Davenport July 9, 1913

The Daily Times. July 8, 1913.

Buffalo Bill brought his Wild West Show to Davenport on July 9, 1913, and gave the city a front-row seat to the Old West.

The show had played in Moline on July 8, then crossed the river for a July 9 stop in Davenport. The grounds were set up on Telegraph Road next to the baseball field, but the real action started downtown.

Thousands packed the streets for the parade. Kids climbed curbs. Men tipped hats. Women craned their necks for a better look. Leading the procession were Buffalo Bill and Pawnee Bill.

The parade had about everything you could imagine. Cowboys, cowgirls, ropers, riders, old stagecoaches, soldiers, and performers from all over the world. A cowboy band played on horseback. Mexican Rurales rode in formation. Elephants and camels lumbered along behind them.

Native American performers were a major draw. Iron Cloud led the procession. Reports said he had been twelve years old at the time of Custer’s defeat at Little Big Horn in 1876. Another man, Yellow Hand, was the son of a chief who fought there.

The Davenport Democrat and Leader called it “a pleasing blending of the Wild West.”

After the parade, everybody headed for the showgrounds. The afternoon performance kicked off at 1 p.m. The evening show opened at 8.

Neustadt's Deptatment Store Davenport Dave Neustadt

 

The Daily Times. July 11, 1913.

This was a new one on me. I'm guessing it was a department store that featured clothing and shoes, but I wasn't able to find much about it online. What I like best is the picture of the building and the owner, Dave Neustadt. The store was located on the corner of Second and Main Street in Davenport.

Remembering Randall's Grocery Stores

 

If you grew up in Iowa anytime from the 1960s into the 1990s, you probably remember Randall’s.

Once a week, the entire family packed into the station wagon and headed to the grocery store. Mom followed the sales. Dad studied the steaks. But us kids. We made a beeline for the cereal aisle—Captain Crunch. Sugar Smacks. Applejacks. Count Chocula.

And if you were lucky, you got a nickel to ride the rocket or the race car in the lobby. Or maybe a few cents to blow in the candy aisle.

That was the kid’s perspective.

Randall’s wasn’t the biggest grocer in Iowa. It didn’t need to be. It carved out a solid spot, mostly in eastern Iowa, and did a good business by giving people what they wanted at a fair price.

The Daring Bank Robbery That Ended With Fire And A Dead Body

 

Orlando Wilkins pointed a shotgun at Cashier A.W. Leach and demanded the cash

Orlando Wilkins and Charles W. Crawford walked into the Adel State Bank on the morning of March 7, 1895, figuring they could scare one cashier, snatch the money, and be gone before anybody knew what hit them.

 

Instead, they kicked off one of the wildest bank robberies in Iowa history.

 

The Iowa State Bystander called it “unparalleled in the criminal annals of the state.” It sounds like newspaper thunder, but the facts backed it up. Wilkins ended the day dead after taking three bullets. Six townspeople were wounded, and for a few minutes, the streets of Adel sounded like open war.

 

Two men walked into the bank around 8:45 a.m. They told cashier A. W. Leach they wanted to make a deposit. Leach turned toward his desk, expecting coins, paper, and another dull morning. He got a rifle shoved in his face instead.

When The Sky Began To Bite The Grasshopper Years

 

The grasshoppers were so thick at time that they blocked out the sun

The 1860s to the 1870s were known as the Grasshopper Years. The “green hellions” came out of the Rocky Mountains and ate their way across the prairies devouring everything in their path. Many early settlers thought the hoppers did more damage than all the marauding Indians in the West.

The grasshoppers also went by the name of the “hopper,” the “red-legged locust,” the “Mormon Locust,” “G. Hopper” (sometimes, Mr. G. Hopper), and the “hateful grasshopper.”

They were often described as “an immense snowstorm” or like a “dust tornado, riding upon the wind like an ominous hailstorm.” Frequently, there were so many that they blocked out the sunlight.

Grasshoppers could eat a field of corn quicker than a herd of hungry buffalo. The hoppers weren’t fussy. “They eat anything—dead plants, dry wood, the wool off of sheep’s backs, dead animals, and when one of their own becomes disabled, they fall upon him and eat him up before he has time to die.”

If the hordes of hungry grasshoppers had been a onetime thing, it wouldn’t have been so bad; the hoppers returned with the spring rains. When they were done eating, they laid their eggs and continued to do so until the ground froze up or they died. 

The Storm Of The Century And The Towns That Disappeared

 

The outbreak started with twin tornadoes outside of Lisbon and Mount Vernon

June 3, 1860, was hot and sticky. Nothing unusual for an Iowa Sunday. Then the sky turned wrong.

 

The storm came out of nowhere. No warning. No time to think. Just a low, growing roar—like a freight train.

 

By the time it was over, over 150 people were dead. About a hundred in Iowa. Fifty more across the river in Illinois. The storm carved a 150-mile path from Cedar Rapids to Sterling in less than two hours. Entire towns—Camanche and Albany—were wiped out in minutes.

When Hobos Roamed Small Town Iowa

 

"Scoopshovel" Scotty McDougall & Boxcar Betty, Hobo King & Queen

Iowa used to have a steady flow of uninvited guests, and nobody considered it a problem.

 

They arrived by freight train, usually without a ticket and with a pretty casual attitude about schedules. They stepped off somewhere near town, stretched, and drifted in like they belonged.

 

People called them hobos. It wasn’t an insult. Just a job description without the job.

 

You didn’t have to go looking for them. They were just… around. Sitting near the tracks. Walking the gravel roads. Cutting across a field. They had a way of moving that didn’t match the rest of town—slower, but not lazy. Like they weren’t in a hurry because they didn’t have anywhere to be.

 

You’d see one now and then, rounding the corner or on your front step.