{"id":209,"date":"2021-10-14T13:00:34","date_gmt":"2021-10-14T13:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/?p=209"},"modified":"2021-10-14T13:00:34","modified_gmt":"2021-10-14T13:00:34","slug":"exploring-quad-cities-journal-topics-newspapers-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/princetonillinois.com\/?p=209","title":{"rendered":"Exploring Quad Cities – Journal & Topics Newspapers Online"},"content":{"rendered":"

Journal & Topics Media Group | Serving Chicago's Great Northwest Suburbs
Thursday, October 14, 2021
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By <\/span> Randy Mink <\/a> | <\/span> on <\/span> October 13, 2021 <\/span>
By RANDY MINK
Special to the Journal & Topics
Riverfront bike paths follow the Mississippi River in Moline, Illinois. (Randy Mink Photo)
I\u2019ve been to the Quad Cities a few times over the years and always left town wanting more. The number of attractions and activities in this bi-state metro area seems limitless and could easily fill a week.
On a recent visit with my adult son, Jeremy, I sought out places and experiences I\u2019d missed before. High on our checklist was a special style of pizza.
Straddling the Mississippi River, the Quad Cities consists of Rock Island, Moline and East Moline in Illinois and the Iowa cities of Davenport and Bettendorf. (Yes, that\u2019s five municipalities, not four, but it\u2019s a story too long to explain right here.) My recent trip included some nearby towns as well.
At Frank\u2019s Pizzeria in Silvis we had our first taste of Quad Cities-style pizza. What makes this regional favorite so distinctive?
Quad Cities style pizza is traditionally cut in strips with a scissors. (Visit Quad Cities Photo)
First of all, there\u2019s malt in the hand-tossed crust. The toppings hide under a gooey layer of melted mozzarella, and the tomato sauce tends to be tangy, not sweet. What stands out most, though, is the crumbly sausage with fennel seed. Not the chunks of sausage I\u2019m used to. But the tiny morsels of meat are delicious, if a bit messy. Traditionally, the pizza is cut into strips with a big scissors.
Frank\u2019s is an old-school place, nothing fancy. It has a dated, retro look with 1950s-type kitchen chairs and a mosaic tile floor that has been there forever. The menu also lists pasta, fried chicken, stromboli, and Italian beef and sausage and meatball sandwiches. Other places serving Quad Cities-style pizza include long-time establishments like Harris, Clint\u2019s and Gunchie\u2019s.
One way to top off your meal in the Quad Cities is making a stop at Whitey\u2019s Ice Cream, a local institution that got its start in Moline in 1933. Eight locations (four in Iowa, four in Illinois) serve sundaes, thick malts and shakes, and cones brimming with premium ice cream in a wide variety of flavors, from Graham Central Station and Mississippi Mud Revel to Cotton Candy, Carrot Cake and Peanut Butter Pretzel Bark. Had I been hungrier when stopping by one of the Davenport stores, I would have tried a Boston, a malt or shake with a sundae on top.
For another made-in the-Quad-Cities experience, we took a tour of Isabel Bloom Studio in Davenport for a peek at the artistic process that goes into the creation of cast-concrete sculptures. Handcrafted by skilled artisans, Isabel Bloom\u2019s sentimental and whimsical pieces portray subjects ranging from angels and gnomes to children and animals.
A Davenport native, Bloom (1908-2001) studied under the famous regionalist artist Grant Wood at the Stone City (Iowa) Art Colony in the 1930s. She then took ceramics classes and bought a kiln for the studio she created in the basement of her Davenport home, starting out sculpting with clay before switching to concrete.
As her business grew, Bloom rented a house for her studio and hired assistants. Although she sold the company in 1981 at the age of 73, she continued to design new sculptures for the next 10 years. Today her prot\u00e9g\u00e9, Donna Young, who joined the firm in 1981, is the sole designer. Every year Young does 25 to 35 new designs. Some of Bloom\u2019s original designs, such as an owl, a daisy and mourning dove, are still part of the product line.
Free tours of the studio, now housed in an old industrial building, include a short video and a walk through the studio as each step in production is explained, from mold-making to painting. Tour members come right up to the painters at work.
The studio\u2019s shop offers the whole range of Bloom sculptures for both indoor and outdoor placement. Popular items include crosses, angels, owls, butterflies and cats. Some pieces are for special occasions (sympathy, weddings), and some are seasonal, such as snowmen and Christmas ornaments.
John Deere Pavilion in downtown Moline showcases the company’s heavy machinery. (Visit Quad Cities Photo)
Moline claims the world headquarters of a really big manufacturer — Deere and Company. The free-admission John Deere Pavilion, a glass-sided building in downtown Moline, displays the brand\u2019s agricultural, construction and forestry equipment along with vintage tractors and other machines. Visitors can climb into the cabs of vehicles, test their skills in state-of-the-art dozer and excavator simulators, and enjoy other hands-on features. (Currently undergoing an interior renovation, the pavilion plans to reopen later this year.) The adjacent store sells toys, gadgets, logo wear and other branded items in Deere\u2019s signature colors of green and yellow.
Also in downtown Moline, you can borrow bikes (for free) at the Visit Quad Cities tourism office for cruising along the riverfront bike paths. We pedaled through the woods on Sylvan Island and saw ruins of a steel plant and quarry, then went the other direction, enjoying some nicely landscaped park land.
The Channel Cat Water Taxi, a fun way of getting around the Quad Cities, makes stops on both the Illinois and Iowa sides of the Mississippi River. (Randy Mink Photo)
Another fun way of exploring the Quad Cities is the Channel Cat, an open-air water taxi that calls at four landings on both sides of the Mississippi. (Curiously, the Quad Cities section of the river flows east to west, not north to south.) The three Channel Cat ferryboats make a continuous loop in an hour or so, and your ticket ($8 adults, $4 children) is good all day. The service, available from Memorial Day through September, is stroller- and bike-friendly. We boarded the boat in downtown Moline and hopped off at the Village of East Davenport, a shopping district on the Iowa side.
A Quad Cities highlight for us was Black Hawk State Historic Site, a state park in Rock Island. In a stone lodge high above the Rock River, the free-admission John Hauberg Indian Museum has dioramas featuring life-size figures and displays a tomahawk and two pipes that belonged to the famous Sauk warrior Black Hawk (1767-1838), among other Indian relics.
At the other end of the building, interpretive panels and a 20-minute video chronicle the efforts of men employed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) to plant trees and build trails, bridges, stone picnic shelters and portions of the lodge during the Depression in the 1930s. Especially interesting are the recorded interviews with workers who recall their days living in barracks at the site for 18 months and the camaraderie they shared with men of different races and religions.
A statue of Sauk warrior Black Hawk stands on the patio of the lodge at Black Hawk State Historic Site in Rock Island, Illinois. Inside the building is the John Hauberg Indian Museum. (Randy Mink Photo)
Roaming the park, visitors learn from information kiosks that from 1891 to 1925 the pretty waterfront setting was Black Hawk Watch Tower Amusement Park. Owned and operated by a streetcar company, it was located at the end of the line. The most popular ride was Shoot the Chutes, a toboggan ride with flat-bottomed boats that slid down a greased wooden track into the river. Invented in Rock Island in 1884, the ride was found at amusement parks around the country.
Today, entertainment options in the Quad Cities abound. From May to September at Modern Woodmen Park on downtown Davenport\u2019s attractive Mississippi riverfront, the Quad Cities River Bandits, the High-A minor league squad of baseball\u2019s Kansas City Royals, compete against teams like the Lansing Lugnuts, Peoria Chiefs and Wisconsin Timber Rattlers. The family-oriented park features a Ferris wheel and other amusements. (One night we enjoyed tasty ethnic fare and waterfront views on the patio at Taste of Ethiopia, a short walk from the stadium.)
Circa \u201921 Dinner Playhouse presents Broadway-style musicals and other shows in a restored 1921 vaudeville-movie theater in downtown Rock Island. The 2022 playlist includes \u201cDisney\u2019s Beauty and the Beast,\u201d \u201cClue: The Musical\u201d (based on the classic board game) and \u201cDisaster!,\u201d a hilarious homage to 1970s disaster films.
Celebration River Cruises\u2019 750-passenger Celebration Belle, the largest non-gaming riverboat on the Upper Mississippi, offers sightseeing, lunch and dinner cruises that sail out of Moline from April through October. Themed music lunch cruises include \u201cClassic Oldies\u201d (1950s and \u201960s), \u201cHits of the Decades\u201d and \u201cBroadway & Movie Tunes.\u201d
Visitors also can tap into the rhythms of the river on Riverboat Twilight, a Victorian-inspired steamboat replica that offers 1\u00bd-hour sightseeing cruises from LeClaire, Iowa, a historic town north of the Quad Cities. On the narrated excursion to Princeton and back, passengers are regaled with river lore. We saw lots of North American white pelicans and spotted an eagle in a tree on the Illinois side.
Adjacent to the riverboat dock is the Buffalo Bill Museum, a repository of local history that includes a rare 1868 sternwheel steamboat. Some exhibits spotlight the career of William F. \u201cBuffalo Bill\u201d Cody, the famous frontiersman, Army scout and showman who toured the U.S. and Europe with his Wild West show. Cody was born in LeClaire Township in 1846, and the Buffalo Bill Cody Homestead in Princeton preserves the stone farmhouse where he lived as a boy. Buffalo graze in the adjacent pasture.
We spent several hours drifting from shop to shop along Cody Road, the main street of LeClaire, a block from the river. Wares range from antiques and collectibles to kitchen gadgets and gourmet foods. Shameless Chocoholic tempts with decadent truffles, butter creams and fudge, while Kernel Cody\u2019s Popcorn Shoppe seems to have every flavor under the sun. LeClaire Olive Oil Co. invites shoppers to sample extra virgin olive oils and balsamic vinegars from around the world.
A half block up the hill from Cody Road, fans of the History Channel\u2019s \u201cAmerican Pickers\u201d flock to Antique Archaeology, the store of the show\u2019s Mike Wolfe. You might see some vintage advertising signs and other valuable antiques for sale or just on display, but most of the affordable items are Antique Archaeology caps, T-shirts, magnets and other logo merchandise.
For a small town, LeClaire is loaded with coffee shops, wine bars and restaurants. Drink in river views from the patios of the Bier Stube (German fare), Mississippi River Distilling Company (which offers tours with tasting) and Green Tree Brewery. Or try the best pork tenderloin sandwiches anywhere at Big Dave & Holly\u2019s.
Following the Great River Road, a national byway, north from LeClaire, we devoted a few hours to Clinton, Iowa. The Sawmill Museum highlights Clinton\u2019s heyday as a lumber center from 1870-1900, when logs floated down from Wisconsin\u2019s northwoods were sawn into lumber, a commodity shipped across the country by rail. Guests can meet animatronic lumber barons, tour replica lumberjack cabins and captain a floating log raft simulator. The Curtis Mansion, the only lumber baron home that remains in Clinton, is open for tours.
On a bluff overlooking the Mississippi is Clinton\u2019s Wide River Winery, where we enjoyed wines with snacks on a peaceful deck set high above a ravine. The owner, Dorothy O\u2019Brien, is a lawyer, and her husband is a retired judge. As a nod to their profession, Wide River\u2019s whites and reds bear names like White Collar Crime, Caught Red Handed, Repeat Offender, So Sue Me Sue, Double Jeopardy, Not Guilty and Sweet Justice. The wine slushies are a real treat. Wide River has tasting rooms in LeClaire and the Village of East Davenport.
The Quad Cities is less than three hours from the Chicago area. For tourism information, go to visitquadcities.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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