Watchtower+Amusement+Park

Original Author: Alysa Grimes, A&S195 SP11 Revision Author:
 * Watch Tower Amusement Park **

Before Black Hawk State Park’s hiking trails, nature preserve, and Sauk Indian museum was the Watch Tower Amusement Park. From the 1880’s to the 1920’s, tens of thousands of people flocked to the amusement park every summer for fun in the sun.

When Bailey Davenport became the owner and superintendent of the Rock Island and Milan Steam and Horse Railway Company in 1882, he built the Watch Tower Amusement Park at the end of a streetcar line to encourage people to ride the streetcars. The park was billed as a “public pleasure spot” and health resort. There was an open summer pavilion on the bluff, picnic benches, walking trails, and a spring near the limestone rock walls said to be “health-giving” with the water “best medicinally north of Kentucky”.

In the 1890’s, electric streetcars became more popular and phased out horse-drawn carriages. Several streetcar lines were bought by Chicago businessman and combined into one they named Davenport-Rock Island Street Car Company. The managing director, D.H. Lauderbach, bought the Watch Tower for seven thousand dollars in April 1891 intending to expand the park and promote the railway.

The park’s season ran from May 15 through September 15. Visitors could now enjoy the park’s tennis courts, croquet grounds, billiard tables, and walking trails. There were fortune tellers, theater and opera, vaudeville and side-show acts, band and orchestra concerts, and balloon ascensions. The park boasted a fantastic inn on the crest of the hill named Black Hawk Watch Tower Inn which offered fine dining and dancing. The Queen Anne Structure was opened July 15, 1892 and housed a dining room, café, ice cream parlor, and ballroom.

In 1895, a stage and an amphitheater capable of seating one thousand people was built. The stage was used for theater productions, vaudeville troupes, and side-show acts. There were also outdoor movies that were projected onto a canvas screen that often flapped in the breeze. Acts were booked for seven to ten day runs, and performances were given every evening with matinees on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. The 1895 season included the famous One-and-a-Half Harringtons. According to a newspaper report: “Mr. Harrington is six feet and three inches tall while his partner the ‘Collar Button’ is three feet and six inches tall and a more comical pair of comedians never stepped upon the stage. Their act is simply irresistible.”

Not all performances were given such a lovely reception. In 1986 the Cherry Sisters sang to a dissatisfied crowd, causing one journalist to note: “No one seemed to want to throw any cabbages or eggs, though one ear of corn did travel toward the stage…”.

Theater troupes from Chicago performed plays and operas. Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” and Gillbert and Sullivan’s “H.M.S. Pinafore” delighted crowds. Coupon books for theater and opera attendees entitled subscribers to twelve performances for four dollars. Tickets at the door were fifty and seventy-five cents. The Royal Hungarian band performed in native costume in 1895 and Albert Peterson’s Orchestra performed works including Strauss, Rossini, and Sousa in 1897. John Philip Sousa himself conducted the Great Lakes Orchestra in 1917.

The most popular attractions were the amusement rides. There was a tunnel of love, merry-go-round, shooting gallery, bowling alley, and roller coaster. The first roller coaster was built in the mid-1890’s but collapsed with no one aboard in 1898. The second roller coaster was known as “The Figure Eight” and was constructed in 1905. It boasted four loops with one being a thousand feet long while rising to a height of sixty feet. It cost a nickel to ride the coaster.

The most famous ride was the toboggan slide or “Shoot the Chutes”. This ride was invented in Rock Island by J.P. Newberg in 1884. The Chutes were located west of the Black Hawk Watch Tower Inn and ran from the top of the bluff down to the river which was a drop of 100 feet. The slide ran on a greased double track built of oak. The flat-bottom boats slid down the track and lifted when the bow reached the bottom. Then the boat skimmed out over the water. It cost a dime to ride The Chutes and according to veterans of the ride, it was worth every penny. One journalist describes their experience: “…here you start in a boat on an inclined plane five hundred feet from the water. The boat runs in a greased track and you commence to descend. The speed increased and the wind whistled past like a tornado. You hang to the boat with one hand and grasp your hat with the other and hold your breath to prevent its getting away from you. Then you strike the water and the boat gives a big jump, landing twenty-five to fifty feet distant right side up…”.

July Fourth was always a special day at Watch Tower. Management made special bookings and entertainment arrangements in honor of the holiday. In 1896, Sam Lockhart and his “wonderful quintet of performing elephants” began a ten-day stint on the Fourth. In 1897, the circus entertained visitors for ten cents with trained animals, trapeze and slack wire artists. More than fifteen thousand visitors attended the park that day. Every Fourth, firework displays from Japan were given free of charge and a river carnival was held in the evening.

July 3, 1896 the original Watch Tower Inn burned down due to faulty wiring. However, crowds still packed the park the next day and were present for the announcement of the plans for the new inn. The second Watch Tower Inn was built for twenty thousand dollars in less than a year officially opening June 25, 1897. After Albert Peterson’s Orchestra played, hundreds of hanging lanterns in the trees were lit, giving the park a fairyland appearance.

This new inn reigned over the heyday of Watch Tower Amusement Park from 1897 to 1916. It too contained an ice cream parlor, dining room and ballroom. Dining facilities were also available on the double veranda that encircled the building. The Watch Tower was noted for its fabulous meals. In 1898, the menu included baked Columbia River salmon and roast blue-wing teal duck. The second floor ballroom had bands on Saturday nights where many came to dance.

After a visit to Watch Tower, former Union General William Sherman remarked that in his extensive travels he had never met its equal. The park was now so popular that streetcars ran to the park every ten minutes. Round-trip fare included admittance to the park and to some attractions. The fare was twenty-five cents for adults and ten cents for children.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Unfortunately, the twenty-year-old inn burned to the ground in 1916. The park management again made plans for a new inn. The Classical Revival building was finished in sixty days for sixty thousand dollars. This inn had many of the same features as those previous; however, this building had “fully modern plumbing”.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Not long into the 1920’s, the park’s popularity began to wane. Henry Ford’s mass production of the Model T made automobiles affordable. Easy access to cars changed the face of America’s leisure time. People were no longer dependant on streetcars for transportation and automobiles opened new horizons and thus changed the tastes of Americans. Many visitors still drove to the park but Watch Tower was financially dependant on revenues from street-car fares and soon went bankrupt and closed its gates.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">In 1927, the Illinois State Legislature appropriated two hundred thousand dollars for the purchase of Watch Tower Park and renamed it Black Hawk State Park. The amusement park rides and other concession were then demolished. In 1936 the Watch Tower Inn was burned down to make way for the present lodge.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">“Black Hawk Sate Historic Site.” //Black hawk State Historic Site//. n.p., n.d. Web. 4 Apr. 2011. <http://www.blackhawkpark.org/History/Watch_Tower_Amusement.html>
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Works Cited **

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Coopman, Dave. “Watch Tower Amusement Park-Rock Island, Illinois.” //Captain Ernie’s Showboat WOC TV 6 Davenport, Iowa//. Rock Island Historical Society, n.d. Web. 4 Apr. 2011. <http://www.captainerniesshowboat.com/watchtoweramusementpark>

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">“Electric Railway Journal- Google Books.” //Google Books//. McGraw Hill Publishing Co., n.d. Web 4 Apr. 2011. <http://books.google.com/books?id=iY5MAAAAYAAJ&dq=watch+tower+amusement+park+rock+island&source=gbs_navlinks_s>

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