Talk:Rock Island, Illinois

Blues Brothers
RI page states that the Blues Brothers are from RI. This is based upon the website "Blues Brothers Central" which quotes Elwood Blues speaking at the closing of Winterland Area in San Franciso (12/31/1978) as saying: "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Winterland Ballroom. Well, they tell us that this is the last concert on the last night of Winterland because, well, not because people don't want it, because construction regulations refuse to permit the building to stand any longer. So while we still can, let us let the blues ring out in this fine, fine concert hall and welcome, from Rock Island, Illinois, the blues band of 'Joliet' Jake and Elwood Blues, the Blues Brothers."

However, the liner notes of the Blues Brothers album Briefcase Full of Blues provides the fictional backstory of "Joliet" Jake and Elwood, having them growing up in Calumet City, IL.

There was apparently a change to the backstory after Rock Island/Quad Cities area did not make the Blues Brothers welcome when they explored filming the movie here. South Park Mall (new at the time) would not allow the mall / car chase scene to be filmed there, and John Belushi lost his wallet in adjacent Moline (or had it stolen).

Rock Island, not an island
Rock Island isn't an island per se, but parts of it are, I believe, considered to be an island on the Mississippi River. The Rock Island Arsenal is located on an island (Arsenal Island) and only accessible via bridges. At least, that's how I remember it. :) corey 18:58, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Information detailing how Rock Island got its name would improve this article. Was one of the islands considered Rock Island Proper?  Was it a mistake on the part of early explorers traveling up the Mississippi river?  The true history of the name should be detailed if it is available.  --12.217.104.215 04:56, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Adding information from this link to the article: http://www.mvr.usace.army.mil/rockislandhistory/intro.htm --DavidGC 05:03, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

The above link is interesting, but omits some important intermediate information. A more complete history of Rock Island would explore the following:


 * The use of the area now known as the Black Hawk State Park, then called Saukenuk, by the Sauk and Fox indians as a winter destination between 1720 and 1832, (though the area had seen human presence for centuries before),
 * The all important relationship between Chiefs Black Hawk and Keokuk, and Keokuks controversial land deals,
 * The battle of Campbell's island (which is some miles upstream from Rock Island), and subsequent arrival of the British to the area now known as Spencers Square (in downtown Rock Island) in 1814,
 * The beginning of the building of Fort Armstrong on what is now Arsenal Island, but then called Rock island, in 1816,
 * Colonel Davenports influence,
 * The arrival of settlers in the 1820s - with an area around the current 28th street known as Farnhamsburg,
 * The Black Hawk War in 1832,
 * In 1832 - 1833, the town was platted as Davenport, but instead got named Stephenson at the last minute (after Colonel Benjamin Stephenson - a War of 1812 veteran and Illinois statesman),
 * The renaming of the town to the current Rock Island in 1841

--Wws 15:19, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

TV Stations
You forget that WQAD was the Moline TV station, you erred in saying on 2 TV stations in Quad Cities, Jim King was the longtime Anchorman and All Star Wrestling host in studio, Acri Creature was a fave of mine, featuring shorts with Vincent and Emmet. WQAD was the ABC affiliate.

Harold Stewart


 * Through the 1950s and early 1960s, WOC-TV (now KWQC-TV) and WHBF-TV were the only two TV stations in the QC area. WQAD came later - in the mid-1960s.  Wws 05:10, 26 June 2007 (UTC) (who was also an ASW and Acri Creature Feature fan...)

Quad cities?
How is it that the Quad cities number five? Did one of them split from the original?Parkwells (talk) 12:43, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It's a good question, one that is answered at the article Quad Cities. HuskyHuskie (talk) 13:08, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Here's a link from the local visitor's bureau that says it straight out: The Quad Cities area consists of Davenport and Bettendorf in Iowa, and Moline, East Moline and Rock Island in Illinois. HuskyHuskie (talk) 13:11, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It was initially the Tri-Cities (RI, Moline, Davenport), then the Quad-Cities (RI, Mol, Dav, with Bettendorf and East Moline fighting it out), then they tried the Quint-Cities, but that didn't stick. So Bettendorf and East Moline are still squabbling. Cptmrmcmillan (talk) 02:37, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Atanasoff invents the computer in RI
Not sure where to place this, but it would be interesting to relate or link to the story of John Vincent Atanasoff and his famous drive to Rock Island in the winter of 1937-1938. There he sat at a restaurant (many think the old Hunters Club) and sketched out several of the major principles of the modern digital computer. This lead to the development of the Atanasoff-Berry Computer.

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Rock Island, Illinois. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090114083221/http://www.mvr.usace.army.mil/rockislandhistory/intro.htm to http://www.mvr.usace.army.mil/rockislandhistory/intro.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cptmrmcmillan (talk) 02:38, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 21:01, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 one external links on Rock Island, Illinois. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://www.webcitation.org/6YQozzgAf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.naco.org%2FCounties%2FPages%2FFindACounty.aspx to http://www.naco.org/Counties/Pages/FindACounty.aspx
 * Added archive http://www.webcitation.org/6YSasqtfX?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.census.gov%2Fprod%2Fwww%2Fdecennial.html to http://www.census.gov/prod/www/decennial.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130911234518/http://factfinder2.census.gov to http://factfinder2.census.gov

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 04:45, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Arsenal Island is not the largest island on the Mississippi river
It only took a quick glance at Google Maps to find a much larger island, French Island, Wisconsin. It has an area of 4.549 square miles, which is roughly three times the area of Arsenal Island. There may be other larger islands, too; this is just the first one I saw. I am modifying this article to remove the claim. Skimpburger (talk) 13:54, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Rock Island, Illinois
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Rock Island, Illinois's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "2020CensusP2": From Joliet, Illinois:  From East Moline, Illinois:  From Moline, Illinois:  From Peoria, Illinois:  From Decatur, Illinois:  

Reference named "2010CensusP2": From East Moline, Illinois: </li> <li>From Peoria, Illinois: </li> <li>From Joliet, Illinois: </li> <li>From Moline, Illinois: </li> <li>From Decatur, Illinois: </li> </ul>

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 04:39, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

NPOV
Second paragraph currently reads like an ad. I’d change it, but I suddenly feel compelled to scope out housing prices in Rock Island, Illinois. Morganfitzp (talk) 02:28, 16 May 2022 (UTC)