Editing Moline, Illinois (section)

===1860s–1940s===
After the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], the population of Moline continued to grow. The street grid was expanded to the east and west along the shoreline and to the south up the bluffs. There was a severe housing shortage; few men were rich enough to invest in real estate other than what they could afford to build for themselves, and few incoming workers had sufficient funds to build a home.<ref>Newspaper clipping from ''The Rock Island Union'', Rock Island, Illinois, Aug. 15, 1868.</ref> Nevertheless, Moline's expansion was generally an orderly affair. The street grid remained a set of rectangular blocks, and though no zoning commission or local authority directly oversaw construction, the unwritten code of carpenters, masons, and citizens kept the city a well-planned place. [[Temperance movement|Temperance]] societies and [[lyceums]] joined other reform movements and social organizations in prominence within the community.<ref>William Roba, ''The River and the Prairie: A History of the Quad-Cities, 1812–1960'', Quad-Cities, Illinois: The Hesperian Press, 1986, p. 20.</ref> The quality of life was generally regarded as quite good: "The laboring men of Moline are among the most prosperous to be found in the country. Instead of spending their spare earnings in saloons and dram shops, they carefully hoard them and in a few years a little home of their own is the result."<ref>"New homes in Moline – what our laboring men do with their money", ''Rock Island Union'', Rock Island, Illinois, July 15, 1868.</ref>

Over time, John Deere expanded operations into other agricultural equipment, and Deere-affiliated factories employed the bulk of Moline's workforce. Soon other Moline-based companies became known around the country for their products. These include Dimock, Gould, and Co., Moline Pipe Organ Co., and Moline Furniture Works, to name a few. In addition, several pioneering automobile companies operated in the city, among them [[Moline Automobile Company]],<ref>Floyd Clymer, ''Treasury of Early American Automobiles, 1877–1925'' (New York: Bonanza Books, 1950), p. 51.</ref> Moline Wagon Company, Stephens (a marque of the [[Moline Plow Company]])<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.carsandracingstuff.com/library/s/salient.php |title=Stephens Salient page at The Crittenden Automotive Library|publisher=Carsandracingstuff.com|access-date=2012-11-12}}</ref> and [[Velie Motors Corporation]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.carsandracingstuff.com/library/v/velie.php |title=Velie page at The Crittenden Automotive Library|publisher=Carsandracingstuff.com|access-date=2012-11-12}}</ref>

During the last few decades of the 19th century, Moline had continued prosperity, expansion of the city to the southwest, west, and east along the Mississippi river, and a stronger relationship with neighboring communities. Consolidation talks began again with Rock Island, but failed as the two cities quarreled over which would acquire the other. By 1880, Moline had 7,800 residents, and by 1890 there were 12,000. Rock Island kept pace with 8,500 and 13,000 people respectively. New jobs were created primarily in Moline in this era.<ref>Jim Renkes, ''The Quad-Cities and the People'', Helena, Montana: American & World Geographic Publishing and the Quad-City Times, 1994, p. 70.</ref>

Several improvements in construction and urban planning led to a shift in urban growth strategies in Moline. The first buildings were equipped with heat in September 1897, and electricity first arrived in Moline in 1881 when John Deere & Co. installed sixteen electric streetlights on the roadway outside its factories. Work on an electric streetcar system soon followed, and within the same decade, an intercity streetcar system linked Moline with Rock Island and Davenport. The diminishing reliance on well water or the river allowed home construction to proceed further up the bluff, and the electric streetcars allowed Tri-Citians to live in one community and shop or work in another. 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.<ref>Tweet, p. 34.</ref> The state's first garbage collection system was also developed in Moline in 1894. In this time, the municipal administration bureaucracy first began to grow, with departments created for sanitation, public works, utilities, and recreation. New public buildings also were constructed; the first public library came in 1873, the YMCA was built in 1885, and Moline Public Hospital opened in 1896.<ref>Jonathan Turner, "Moline authors chronicle ‘City of Mills,’" ''The Moline Dispatch.'' Moline, Illinois, Apr. 19, 1998, p. A10.</ref>

In the midst of steady growth and changing times, the town's founders struggled to maintain their positions of authority. Moline was re-chartered as a 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.<ref>Roba, p. 86.</ref> Belgian and Swedish immigrants began arriving in a huge influx, settling into a neighborhood on the bluffs in the southwestern part of the city. Belgian immigrants came predominantly to work in the fledgling auto industry in Moline, [[Velie Motors Corporation|Velie Motors]], founded by a Deere relative. For a time, Moline had the second largest Belgian population in the country after Detroit. Swedish immigrants continued to be drawn to Deere & Company, with John Deere as leader continuing to hire new employees in droves until his death in 1886.<ref>Renkes, p. 78.</ref>

In 1883 a major overhaul of Moline's urban grid was undertaken. Several roads were removed or re-routed in the interest of creating an aesthetically pleasing downtown and a more orderly method of horse and streetcar transit. The model of [[Lowell, Massachusetts|Lowell]] was abandoned in favor of that of [[Pittsburgh]], a great river town with a strong urban center. Retail and commerce was encouraged in downtown Moline, and higher density housing began to appear there. The historic street names were replaced by a numerical system in which north–south roads were dubbed "streets" and east–west ones were re-christened "avenues". Though some complained "the corner of Ann Street and Bass Street… is now merely 17th Street at 6th Avenue", the new system, inspired by an alderman's visit to Philadelphia in 1876 for the Centennial, was generally regarded as a great urban innovation.<ref>Tweet, p. 24.</ref>

Moline was a successful, if somewhat boring, turn-of-the-20th-century city. It was clean, well maintained, and prosperous, and unlike Rock Island and Davenport, contained no slums, congestion, or red-light districts. Despite the occasional conflicts between native-born and immigrant leaders, the Puritanical, serious temperament of the city had not changed in the half-century since Moline's founding. The 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 system expanded as the city did, and by 1915 there were over {{convert|45|mi|km}} of paved city streets and {{convert|75|mi|km}} of sidewalks.<ref>Jane Sturgis, ''Moline: The Golden Years'', In fulfillment of Art 400A, Tennessee State University, Nashville, 1987.</ref> 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 city in 1911 as an amusement park.<ref>Julie Jensen, "Moline: Of Mills and Mansions…" ''Quad-City Times'', Davenport, Iowa, Feb. 22, 1976, p. 2D.</ref> The widespread prosperity attracted 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. The 1910 census showed the Tri-Cities metro area to have the second highest per-capita income in the United States.<ref>Roba, p. 97.</ref>

By the 1920s and 1930s, the appearance of East Moline in Illinois and Bettendorf in Iowa reflected the further growth and diversification of the region. Moline emerged as a retail, transportation, and cultural hub on the Illinois side of the river. The first metropolitan airfield, the Moline Airport, opened in 1926 and later provided commercial air service to Chicago and [[St. Louis]].<ref>Roba, p. 123.</ref> With federal funds from the [[Works Progress Administration]], the [[I-74 Bridge|Iowa-Illinois Memorial Bridge]], a single-span, two-lane highway bridge built for automotive traffic, was concluded between Moline and Davenport in 1935 and quickly became the preferred method for interstate transit.<ref>Roba, p. 124.</ref> A bustling retail sector emerged in downtown Moline, anchored by merchants like the New York Store, Sears & Roebuck, and JC Penney.<ref>Roba, p. 106.</ref> The economic reliance on the farm implement industry continued as Deere & Company emerged to become the largest agricultural machinery company in the world. Colonel Charles Deere Wiman, the President of Deere & Company, re-affirmed Deere's commitment to the Quad-Cities region by building several new factories in Moline, East Moline, [[Silvis, Illinois|Silvis]], and [[Milan, Illinois|Milan]] in Illinois and Davenport in Iowa.