Ghosts along the Mississippi River

Iowa

49 Iowa davenport Davenport is located on the border between Iowa and Illinois. During the signing of the treaty that ended the Blackhawk War in 1832, Sauk Indian chief Keokuk gave a large tract of land to Marguerite LeClaire, the wife of Antoine LeClaire, who served as translator during the proceedings. Following Keokuk’s instructions, Antoine built a house, the Treaty House, on the exact spot where the treaty was signed. Antoine established Davenport on May 14, 1836, and named it after his friend Colonel George Davenport. The city was incorporated on January 25, 1839. In 1856, the construction of the first railroad bridge across the Mississippi River by the Rock Island Railroad connected Davenport and Rock Island. During the Civil War, five Union camps were set up in the city. In order to care for the hundreds of Iowa children orphaned after the Civil War, the Iowa Soldiers’ Orphans’ Home was established on November 16, 1865. Davenport experienced a building boom in the 1920s. Buildings like the Kahl Building and the Park Building soared into the sky. Businesses like Sears and JC Penney started up in downtown Davenport during this time. The city’s economy, which plunged during the Great Depression of the 1930s, bounced back in the boom following World War II. However, local businesses suffered greatly during the economic downturn of the 1970s. In the 1980s, many people lost their jobs when the Caterpillar plant closed. In the 1990s, Davenport bounced back with the revitalization of the downtown area. iowa  the blackhawk hotel Davenport’s Blackhawk Hotel on East Third Street was built in 1915. In the 1920s, the hotel was completely remodeled to coincide with the city’s growing prosperity. Four stories were added to the building, as well as marble accents to the windows. Some of the guests who stayed at the hotel’s four hundred luxurious rooms included celebrities such as Pearl Bailey, Carl Sandburg, Herbert Hoover, Carey Grant, Ronald Reagan, Jack Dempsey, and Richard Nixon. Guy Lombardo and Stan Keeton provided the music for some of Davenport’s gala events in the Blackhawk’s huge ballroom. The Blackhawk Hotel’s fortunes declined at the same rate as the city’s. In the 1970s, Davenport tried to pump new life into its deteriorating downtown by building a new civic center, the Rivercenter. The city’s efforts to rebuild its urban center were not enough to neutralize the effects of the economic downturn brought about by Iowa’s farming crisis. However, the Blackhawk’s future seemed to brighten when a convention center was constructed nearby in the 1990s. The construction of the Figge Art Museum and the restoration of Modern Woodmen Park attracted the Isle of Capri to downtown Davenport. Renamed “The President Casino’s Blackhawk Hotel,” the old hotel fell even further into decline. It became a “low-rent” hotel for gamblers unable to afford the cost of staying at the Radisson, the only other hotel in downtown Davenport. By the end of the decade, a meth lab fire and burst water pipes in the winter had caused so much damage to the old hotel that the Isle of Capri was forced to close it down. The Blackhawk received a new lease on life, however, in August 2008 when the state of Iowa awarded Amrit and Amy Gill, owners of Restoration St. Louis, an 8.5 million tax credit to renovate a number of buildings, including the Blackhawk Hotel. The Gills plan to transform the Davenport Club on the eleventh floor into luxury apartments. Nothing has been said so far about the fate of the ghosts who remain in the Blackhawk Hotel. At least three spirits are believed to haunt the Blackhawk Hotel. One is the ghost of a musician. Many people have heard someone playing the piano in the ballroom when no one else is around. A female spirit has been sighted floating down the hallways in a blue dress. Her Davenport  dignified demeanor has led some eyewitnesses to conclude that she is the ghost of one of Davenport’s “high society” women who regularly attended the soirees held in the old hotel. The Blackhawk’s most famous ghost is the spirit of a world-famous movie star. On November 29, 1986, actor Cary Grant died from a cerebral hemorrhage in a room on the eighth floor. Grant has been identified as the elderly, well...