Why This Eastern Iowa Area Was The “Wickedest City In America” In 1903

Not every place will have a squeaky clean history.

We know that the Quad Cities area, especially the Iowa side, has a history steeped in railroad expansion and river traffic. That's what led places like Davenport to grow as a place where many travelers stopped.

But as the night influx of boat crews happened, one area of Davenport got a bit ratchet:

Bucktown.

Bucktown is an area along the eastern end of downtown Davenport and it was a red-light district. Bucktown was settled by German immigrants who created beer gardens and kept many speakeasies going during the Prohibition era.

Dance halls, saloons, and about 42 brothels within a 2-block area. Pretty sure my building used to be one.

Bucktown's full story was compiled by local author Jonathan Turner, who wrote a book about Bucktown history in the early 1900's, called "A Brief History of Bucktown: Davenport's Infamous District Transformed" that details the story of Bucktown's past. Check out the old pics of downtown Davenport/Bucktown and see if you can identify the streets:

It Wasn't All Trashy

There's a flipside to being a social hotbed. Like my old stomping grounds around Memphis, jazz and blues music made it's way up the Mississippi to Davenport, including Louis Armstrong and the one we all know: Bix Beiderbecke.

Music in general was huge in Bucktown. In 1856, immigrants formed the German Strasser Union Marching Band of Davenport and in 1916, the Tri-City Symphony Orchestra was founded (which is now the Quad-City Symphony Orchestra). Before Davenport had things like running water, they had opera houses.

As downtown expanded outside of Bucktown, Hotel Blackhawk was built in 1915 and the nation's first municipal art gallery, now the Figge Art Museum, was built in 1925.