|
|
|
|
1880? - 1927 |
 |
Amusement parks sprang up all over the country in the late-nineteenth and
early twentieth century providing entertainment
for the entire family before the age of radio and television. In the 1880’s the Watch Tower Park
was opened on the bluff above the Rock River at Rock Island, now the site of Black Hawk State
Historic Site ( Black Hawk Park). Until the 1920’s Watch Tower Park provided enjoyment for
tens of thousands of people annually.
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 the futures of the two
enterprises.
Watch Tower Park was the brain child of Bailey Davenport. a local businessman who owned the
land on which the park was built. It is not clear which came first the park or the trolley line. It is
known that in 1882 Davenport became the owner and superintendent of the Rock Island and
Milan Steam and Horse Railway Company. Since horse drawn streetcar had difficulty climbing
the top of the bluff, Davenport installed a stationary steam engine or dummy at the top to the hill
which pulled the cars up. At the top of the hill Davenport developed Watch Tower Park
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 , possibly excavated by Indians, was advertised as the “best medicinally north of Kentucky.”
Families could board a streetcar, ride to the park, and enjoy a day of picnicking and hiking.
In 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 to the park. The park was so popular that by
1897 cars run into 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 15th 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 vaudeville and sideshow acts, listen
to band and orchestra concerts, and view balloon ascensions.
The "Watch Tower " displayed on this postcard was actually used to launch balloons
The Second "Figure 8" Roller Coaster
A magnificent inn on the crest of
the hill - Black Hawk’s Watch Tower Inn - offered fine dining and dancing. This Queen Anne
structure, completed at a cost of ten thousand dollars, was officially opened July 15, l892. It
featured a dinning room, cafe, ice cream parlor, and a ballroom.
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 sideshows 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.’
The theater troupes from Chicago performed plays and Operas. Shakespeare's “As You LikeIt”
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.
The most famous ride, and certainly the most popular, was the toboggan slide or “Shoot the Chute.” 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. 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 a cable which was powered by an electric cable powered by the streetcar line. It coat a dime to ride the
Chutes and was worth every penny. That exciting ride made such an impression that those who rode the Chutes as
those who were small children still recall their rides. 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....
Looking Down the "Chute"
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 In 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 verandah 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 dinning room. Dinning facilities were also
available on the open verandah. The Watch Tower was noted for its fine meals. At an 1898 banquet the menu
included such delicacies as baked Columbia River salmon and roast Blue-Wing 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.
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 dinning facility on the first floor and a
ballroom on the second. The frame and stucco structure was heated with steam and had “fully modern plumbing.”
The Third Lodge 1916-1938
But 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 depriving the park of the Streetcar revenue it depended
upon. The Park went bankrupt and closed its gates.
The Park still had its supporters, the most effective being Mr. Hauberg who wanted to preserve the Park for its
historic connections to the Sauk and Mesquakie Indians who had lived in the area. 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 Chute, roller coaster, shooting gallery, bowling alley and other concessions were
demolished as incompatible with the new role of state park. In 1936 the Watch Tower Inn was demolished to make
room for the current lodge which retained dinning facilities. Mr. Hauberg endowed the site with a Museum
dedicated to explaining the cycles of Indian life in the 1800 era. As the decades went by concern over preserving
for the historic assets of Black Hawk State Park caused it to be reclassified as a State Historic Site ending the use of the
lodge as a restaurant. The wooded paths that Bailey Davenport set aside for strolling became an Illinois Nature
Preserve.
An exhibit on the amusement park is currently on display at Black Hawk’s Hauberg Indian Museum. Though
more sophisticated rides are now available a steady stream of visitors still tell the museum staff of their trips down
the “Chute;