Rock Island, Illinois 1882 - 1927
Dave Coopman and the Rock Island Historical Society present -
| WATCH TOWER Rock Island, Illinois 1882 - 1927 |
On a busy day several thousand people rode the streetcar to Watch Tower Park where they could enjoy rides, hiking, theater and other entertainment. This view, obviously taken during the off season, features the fountain (lower left corner), pavilion (left center) and carousel (top center). Black Hawk State Park's Predecessor Thrived During Pre-Radio and -Television Era Rock Island's Turn-of-the-Century Amusement Park
Elizabeth Carvey
Curator, Hauberg Indian Museum
Black Hawk State Park
Watch Tower Park, named for its commanding view of the Rock River Valley, was the first and largest amusement park west of Chicago. It was an "end of the line' amusement park, built at the end of a streetcar line to encourage ridership. Admission to the park was included in the cost of the streetcar fare, an arrangement that tied together the fortunes and futures of the two enterprises.
 | Busmen posed on a Watch Tower Line streetcar at the turn of the century. In 1897 cars ran to the park every ten minutes. |
Watch Tower Park was the brainchild of Bailey Davenport, a local businessman who owned the land on which the park was built. In 1882 Davenport became owner and superintendent of the Rock Island and Milan Steam and Horse Railway Company. He built a dummy - or steam engine - line up the hill but it is not clear which came first, the trolley line or the park. Davenport developed the Watch Tower into a "public pleasure spot" and health resort. He built an open summer pavilion on the crest of the bluff, installed picnic benches and established walking trails. A spring located in the limestone bluff was advertised as a "health-giving spring" and the water as the "best medicinally north of Kentucky." Families could board the streetcar, ride to the park, and enjoy a day of picnicking and hiking.
|
In April 1891 Watch Tower park was purchased for seven thousand dollars by D.H. Lauderbach, managing director of the Davenport-Rock Island Street Car Company, a business formed when several independent streetcar lines were bought out by Chicago businessmen and merged into one. Horse-drawn cars were phased out as electric cars came increasingly into use. Lauderbach, who managed the company from Chicago, intended to expand the park and promote the railway. By September electric cars on the newly christened "Tower Line" were running every hour. A flurry of building followed during the period 1891 through 1896 as the park's popularity increased. Excursion parties from outlying communities frequently rode the train into Rock Island, transferred to the streetcar line and went on to the park. The park was so popular that by 1897 cars ran to the park every ten minutes. Round-trip fare, which included admittance to the park and to some attractions, was twenty-five cents for adults and ten cents for children. |  |
During the "amusement season" - May 15 to September 15 - visitors could take advantage of the park's tennis courts, croquet grounds, billiard tables and walking trails. One could also have his fortune told, attend summer theater and opera, delight at the vaudeville and side-show acts, listen to band and orchestra concerts and view balloon ascensions. A magnificent inn on the crest of the hill - Black Hawk's Watch Tower Inn - offered fine dining and dancing. The Queen Anne structure, completed at a cost of ten thousand dollars, was officially opened July 15, 1892. It housed a dining room, cafe, ice cream parlor and ballroom.
The "Figure-Eight" roller coaster, constructed in 1905, was a popular Watch Tower attraction.
| In 1895 work began on a stage with an amphitheater capable of seating one thousand people. The stage was used for theater productions, vaudeville troupes and side-show acts. Acts were booked for seven to ten day stints, and shows were given every evening during the season with matinees on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Attractions for the 1895 season, according to a park press release, included “The remarkable midget Rossow Brother,... The famous Hardin and Ah Sid with their acrobatic pantomimic acts, ... Calini’s troop of educated dogs an monkeys,...Capitane the Aerialist,... (and) Caleedo, The king of the Wire.” There was culture offered too in the appearance of “Princess Lilly Dolgornsky, the greatest of lady violinists.” The famous One-and-a-Half Harringtons were also booked for the season. According to the newspaper account “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. One can only imagine! |  |
The crowds attending the park’s summer performances were not reluctant to express their feelings. In 1896 the Cherry Sisters sang to a disappointed 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, but the desire to yell, in a sort of chorus, possessed all hands and this rhythmical eruption was about as musical as the songs from the stage, and may be accounted a triumph of sound.’
Theater troupes from Chicago performed plays and operas. Shakespeare's “As You Like It” was a tremendous success. Gilbert and Sullivan’s “H.M.S. Pinafore” and the “Mikado” were presented in 1895, and a year later the park began booking serious opera. Coupon books entitling the subscriber to twelve performances sold in advance for four dollars, while tickets at the door were fifty and seventy-five cents. Orchestras booked in the band shell performed free. The Royal Hungarian Band appeared in native costume in 1895, and Albert Peterson’s Orchestra performed two concerts in 1897 that included works of Strauss, Rossini, and Sousa. John Philip Sousa himself conducted the Great Lakes Orchestra at the Park in 1917.
The most popular attractions, however, were the amusement rides. There was a tunnel of love, a merry-go-round, shooting gallery, bowling alley, and roller coaster. The first roller coaster was constructed in the mid-1890’s and collapsed with no on aboard in 1898. The second, known as “The Figure Eight,” was constructed in 1905. It had four loops (one was a thousand feet long) and rose to a dizzying height of sixty feet. Rides cost a nickel.
 Shoot the Chutes generator house |  Merry-Go-Round |
Roller coaster |  Bowling alley |
 Music pavilion overlooking the Rock River |  Watch Tower Inn on the bluff overlooking the chutes and the Rock River. |
 The Inn, a large, spacious pavilion, is situated on the top of the bluff and encircled with two tiers of broad, cooling verandas, from whence the visitor can command the finest view of the landscape. Meals and refreshments of all kinds are served at the inn at popular prices. The cooking and service are first class and five hundred persons can be served at dinner at one time. An excellent dinner will be served excursionists at 25 cents per plate. |  All kinds of out-door amusements are provided for visitors to the Watch Tower and nowhere can anyone find more genuine enjoyment than at this beautiful resort. The "Chutes," or land and water Toboggan Slide, Band Concerts, Roller Coaster, Merry-Go-Round, Shooting Gallery, Bowling Alley, Museum, Open Air Theatrical Performances, Mirror Mazes, Enchanted Swings, Fishing, Boating, Bathing and many other sources of pleasure delight the visitor. An excellent band renders Concerts daily, consisting of pleasing and popular music. |
 The success of the open air performance of "As You Like It," which was produced at the Tower, has led the management to negotiate for performances and operas to be produced in gorgeous costumes and brilliant settings at that sylvan retreat. The best theatrical talent in summer opera and vaudeville obtainable appear here daily, afternoon and evening, accompanied by a fine orchestra and efficient management, offering a great inducement to those in search of pleasant outing. |  Open Pavilion About half way down the cliffs between the Inn and the river is to be found the famous "Thunder Bolt Cave," where a Sac maiden and her lover lie buried. An Indian legend recites that they sought shelter from a storm in this cave and a thunder bolt descended from the clouds and shattered the overhanging cliff, leaving them entombed beneath the mass of fragmentary rock. "Chapel Cove" is another romantic spot, where the rugged cliffs form a natural shady chapel with a veritable Pulpit Rock. This is an ideal place for out of door speaking, one of nature's rostrums so seldom found perfect. Both places are especially adapted for photographic groups and visitors should not fail to see these weird spots. |
 Hundreds of thousands of excursionists, picnickers and summer tourists have visited this beautiful spot, which looks out over the same natural scene that Black Hawk loved so well, now somewhat changed and improved by the march of civilization. The management has here, regardless of expense, produced a modern ideal outing ground in an enclosure of over twenty acres on the top of the bluff. |  Water Works
|
 Riders begin their decent on the "Shoot the Chutes," the Watch Tower famous toboggan slide. |
The most famous ride and certainly the most popular, was the toboggan slide or “Shoot the Chutes.” The
toboggan slide was invented by J. P. Newberg of Rock Island in 1884, and the “Chutes” at the Watch Tower was
the first such attraction in America. Soon the toboggan slides were being built throughout the country. The
Chutes were located west of the Inn and ran from the top of the bluff down to the river, a drop of one hundred feet.
The slide consisted of a greased double track built of oak. The flat-bottom boats slid down the track and as the boats
reached the bottom the bow lifted and the boat skimmed out over the water. The conductor, who rode standing up
all the way down, then poled the boat back to the base of the slide. The boat and its occupants were hauled to the
top via an electric cable powered by the streetcar line. It coat a dime to ride the
Chutes and it was worth every penny. That exciting ride made such an impression that those who rode the Chutes as
small children today vividly recall their first ride. That the ride was thrilling leaves no doubt. In the exciting words of a
contemporary journalist:
... 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....
|
The toboggan skimmed over the water of the Rock River, ending in an amusement ride that impressed both children and adults.
HEAD OF TOBOGGAN SLIDE Shooting the "chutes" is taking a toboggan chute slide down an incline five hundred feet into the water and returning to the starting point by electricity; a duplicate of Paul Boyton's great "chutes" in Chicago that has created such enthusiasm among pleasure seekers. MUSEUM OF WONDERS In the western part of the grounds is a first-class museum, a regular "old curiosity shop," where the visitor may see thousands of relics, freaks, curiosities, animals, birds and wonders from every part of the world. A thoroughly competent lecturer entertains and explains the multitude of interesting objects to be seen. New features are being added to this collection constantly. MOUNT LOOKOUT PLACE Adjoining the Watch Tower grounds on the west is the beautiful and picturesque "Mount Lookout Place," where furnished rooms for summer tourists and camping grounds and carriage yards accommodate the public.
July Fourth was an exceptionally special day. Families packed their picnic hampers, boarded the trolley, and rode
out to spend the entire day at the park. The park 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 appeared, and for ten-cent entrance fee visitors were
entertained by trained animals, trapeze artist, and slack wire artists . More than fifteen thousand visitors jammed
Watch Tower Park that day. Every Fourth, free of charge, afternoon displays of fireworks imported directly from
Japan were given for the crowds pleasure. A river carnival was held in the evening.
July 4, 1896, was a bittersweet day. The previous day the Watch Tower Inn had caught fire, probably due to faulty
wiring, and burned to the ground. Undaunted, crowds jammed the park as plans for a new inn were announced.
The second Watch Tower Inn, built for twenty thousand dollars, officially opened June 25, 1897. Five thousand
people attended the grand opening and were entertained by Albert Peterson’s Orchestra. At dusk, hundreds of
lanterns hanging in the trees were lit, giving the park a fairyland appearance.
The new inn, which reigned over the Park’s heyday, 1897-1916, was a three story clapboard-sided structure. A
double veranda encircled the striking salmon colored building. The kitchen and manager’s quarters were located
in the basement and the first floor housed the ice-cream parlor and dining room. Dining facilities were also
available on the open veranda. The Watch Tower was noted for its superb meals. At an 1898 banquet the menu
included such delicacies as baked Columbia River salmon and roast blue-wing teal duck. The second floor
ballroom featured bands on Saturday nights for the enjoyment of dancers. The first inn at Watch Tower park to be
open year round, it served as a magnet to area residents and out of town visitors. Sadly, the twenty-year-old inn
burned to the ground in 1916.
The first Watch Tower Inn, built in 1892, stood only four years before it burned. The Electric Fountain, shown here on the left, erected last year, is a marvel in beauty and one of the greatest attractions to be found anywhere. it is truly wonderful in light effects and the streams of molten color, artistic and magical, constitute a sight never to be forgotten. The second inn, which reigned over the park's heyday, was noted for its fine meals and dancing. It burned too, in 1916. The third inn at Watch Tower Park - a marked change from the style of its two predecessors - was razed in 1936.
Undaunted, the park management ordered construction of another inn. The Classical Revival building was
completed in sixty days at a cost of sixty thousand dollars.
It too had dining facilities on the first floor and a
ballroom on the second. The frame and stucco structure was heated with steam and had “fully modern plumbing.”
Times changed and the park’s popularity declined. The First World War wrought tremendous change in the
tenor of American life. Henry Ford’s mass production of the Model T suddenly made automobiles affordable. The
auto, in turn, changed the face of America and revolutionized leisure time. No longer were people dependent on
the electric streetcar for transportation. New vistas were opened and with that the tastes of Americans changed.
Many visitors to Watch Tower Park drove or rode bicycles and with the park financially dependent on revenues from street-car fares it soon went bankrupt and closed its gates.
In 1927 the Illinois state
legislature appropriated two hundred thousand dollars for the purchase of Watch Tower Park, renaming it Black
Hawk State Park. The Chutes, roller coaster, shooting gallery, bowling alley and other concessions were
demolished and in 1936 the Watch Tower Inn was razed to make way for the present lodge.
Sophisticated rides have replaced the popular ones of seventy years ago but it is clear as grandparents relate memories of their first ride down the Chutes that those days are not forgotten.
FROM THE ROCK ISLAND ARGUS NEWSPAPER: For a 40 year period from 1880 to the 1920s the park was popularized as an amusement center. Horse-drawn and electric trolley cars were the popular means of transportation. Rock Island's Civil War Mayor Bailey Davenport built a summer pavilion at Watch Tower in the 1880s, advertising the park's "health-giving spring" as the "best medicinally north of Kentucky." In 1885 the first toboggan slide ever known was built a little east of the Watch Tower at "Spring Cove" and subsequently a second slide was constructed. Soon "shooting the chutes" became popular in every resort in the country. The block-long slide emptied its people-laden boats into the river from whence they were returned to the slide by cable. Older residents will recall those "carnival" days with the park's figure-eight roller coaster, rising 60 feet into the air and traveling 1,000 feet around four loops, the Katzenjammer castle, laughing gallery and other amusement pavilions. Five inns, including the current one built in 1942, have been erected at Watch Tower. A Queen Anne-style inn was built in 1892 replacing the original one but it burned to the ground four years later. Fire also claimed a third inn built in 1896. It was a three-story summer hotel surrounded by a two-story music pavilion, bowling alleys, a museum, merry-go-round and swings, a rifle range and theater in addition to the boat chute. Eighty days after the August 1915 fire leveled that inn a colonial-style white inn with pillared white columns took its place. It was torn down in 1936 after the State of Illinois, which made it into a state park in 1927, began its program of erecting rustic-type buildings there.
ROLLER SKATER SHOOTS CHUTES
L. C. Hamilton Makes Thrilling Flight on Incline at the Watch Tower
ENCIRCLED BY FLAMES
Dash Down Slide Over in Instant - Wins Two Mile Races at Rink in Afternoon.
Fully ten thousand people went to the Watch Tower last night to witness the daring feat of L. C. Hamilton, who was billed to slide down the chutes on roller skates. Advantageous places around the chutes were packed with spectators who waited for hours for the event to be staged. At 10:30, Hamilton attired in woolen tights, to which tufts of cotton, saturated with gasoline were attached, appeared at the top of the chutes. A match was applied to him and away he went. In less than a minute it was all over. The spectacle was thrilling to say the least.
Starting 20 feet from the top of the coaster, Hamilton reached the water in record time. In fact, it was all over before the crowd realized what he had done. When Hamilton reached the water, he threw his feet forward and allighted on his back in the water. He was plucked up by some men in a boat. There is a probability that the stunt will be repeated.
WINS TWO MILE RACE.
Previous to the feat at the stadium, Champ Hamilton won a pair of mile races at the roller rink. The first was against three local skaters - French, Aldrich and Slater who worked in relay. For a while Hamilton kept even with his first opponent but toward the middle of the race, he forged steadily ahead and won easily. The next event was much more exciting. Ralph Hitchcock of Davenport, riding an Indian motorcycle, attempted to win a mile event from the skater. The roller rink at the Tower is rather small and it takes 15 laps to complete a mile. This necessitated many sharp turns and Hitchcock was greatly handicapped. However, he managed to keep abreast of Hamilton for the greater part of the race but on the last few laps, Hamilton spurted ahead and won. The time was 2:50. Hitchcock made the distance in 2:52.
More on J.P. Newberg from the Rock Island Argus... J.P. Newberg, the manager, is a native of the state, having been born in Knox County in the year 1853. He attended the public schools of his neighborhood and afterward completed a term at Knox College.
In 1882 he located in Moline, where he opened a grocery business in which he conducted for two years. In 1884 he moved to Spring Cove, 1/2 mile east of the Watch Tower and there erected the first toboggan slide ever built. The idea was original with Mr. Newberg and he received letters of patent from the U.S. Government for his invention.
He conducted this amusement enterprise for several years, later going to Chicago where his toboggan idea gained fame and from which has grown the amusement in vogue at nearly every resort in the country, which is known as "shooting the chutes." Returning to Rock Island Mr. Newberg was given the contract as manager of Watch Tower Inn which he successfully conducted.
07/13/2008 ... Dave Coopman adds this terrific Watchtower picture -
08/19/2008 ... Ryan Daniel writes; I recently stumbled upon your website about the Watch Tower Amusement Park and am absolutley awed. I am in my mid 20's and have been to Black Hawk State Park many, many times. My wife and I occasionally walk through the trails. I had no idea any of these things ever existed. It seems like such a travesty that it is barely known that such an amazing place had once been there. I have a hundred questions though.
If the Inn's were built where the current Museum building is, where were the other things in relation that building now?
How about the Chutes, roller coaster, and carousel?
Are there ANY remnants of what was?
Looking onto the river from the museum, it seems that maybe something could have been to the left, and over to the right where the "prairie acre" is. Is that true? Those seem like small spots for the things that may have stood there.
How about the theater?
I am also curious about "Thunder Bolt Cave," or "Chapel Cove." Are they still somewhere in the hillside?
I don't know if its really possible, but there should be some sort of map laying out where things were in relation to current structures. I would love to help with something like that if it were to ever come to be.
Any information would be fantastic. Since I read the article I have been strangely excited to get back to the park. It looks like it would have been a fantastic place to be. Thank you for your web page, and for whatever else you have in reply.
Ryan
Dave Coopman replies -
Ryan,
All of the inns were built basically in the same spot. From as near as I can determine from some quick research, the first three were built on pretty much the same foundations, or at least used them as a basis. The fourth inn, used an entirely new foundation and the fifth and present inn used some of the fourth's foundation.
Most of the amusement park's elements and rides were built west of the inn, primarily where the west parking lot and native prairie area is. Remember that topography was much different in those days than today. There was no Blackhawk Road, just a roadbed for the trolley tracks; no former state police headquarters; no homes way to the west; etc. And of course, no parking lots, as there weren't that many cars - if any - in the early era of the park. Autos contributed to the demise of the trolleys and therefore, the amusement park. The only amusement ride location that I could uncover through some research that was east of the inn, was in the area that is today the east parking lot. That ride was the Figure Eight rollercoaster, built in 1905. Everything else was located in the area just to the left of the main drive up the hill and to the west (right side of drive).
A guess based on early pics and current topography put the Shoot the Chute at the end of the west parking lot. There seems to be a natural split in the terrain and trees that appears like it could have been the head end of that ride, but it might also have been even further west toward the back of the former police headquarters building.
As near as I can determine from research and wandering the park years ago, there are no remnants of the amusement rides or buildings. Part of that may have been because of the construction upheaval over the years. Keep in mind, too, that when the last inn (lodge) was built, the area that today is parking lot and prairie grassland (near the bridge over Blackhawk Road), was the camp for the WPA workers who built the inn. (If you haven't seen it, there is a neat exhibit at the east end of the lodge pertaining to the WPA camp and the building of the lodge.)
Again from examining early pictures, the music pavilion seemed to have been located just at the top of today's main drive. The gazebo (open air pavillion) would have been over your left shoulder when stopped at the top of the main drive. The theatre appears to have been furthest to the west, in the area just west of the bridge.
Since it has been at least 40 years since I wandered the south side of the park, I don't remember too much about what is on and below the cliffs. The Thunder Bolt Cave is directly below today's lodge, about halfway between the top of the hill and the river. I'm unsure today where the Pulpit Rock or the Chapel Cove are located, but they are obviously on the cliff side of the park. The Rock Island County Historical Society Museum has some pretty good files on all of Black Hawk's Watch Tower area. You may wish to investigate further there. I have never seen a map showing the location of the structures during the amusement park era, and I, too, would love to see one.
In case you weren't aware of it, Bailey Davenport had a coal mine in the park. It was located just north and west of the intersection of 17th Street with Blackhawk Road. In the winter you can see where the land flattens out a bit, the hillside where they dug the coal, and some of the "slag" or spoils dug out of the mine.
I hope this answers some of your questions, although admittedly, exact locations for the amusements are very tough to determine. Anyone who might have visited is long dead and actual maps are probably non-existent, at least that I could uncover. However, I hope this whets your appetite to research the park even more.
Regards,
Dave Coopman
| WATCH TOWER AMUSEMENT PARK |