Orientation
As you stand on the Channel Cat Landing at the Isle of Capri Casino, you also are looking at the former home of the Bettendorf Wheel Company. The enormous railroad car factory once was believed to be the largest roofed structure in the world, occupying about a mile of the Bettendorf riverfront, from the I-74 Bridge to 28th Street.
Just north up 18th Street stands the former home of Bettendorf Wheel Company founder, Joseph Bettendorf. The magnificent is on the National Register of Historic Places, and is now owned by Rivermont Collegiate Preparatory School.
Joseph’s brother, William, built a Spanish-style mansion at the other end of the factory complex up 27th Street that was intended to wow potential customers. It still stands today, and is now part of the Iowa Masonic Health Facility. William would not see it completed when he unexpectedly passed in 1910.
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Sources
- The Joseph W. Bettendorf Mansion by Rivermont Collegiate
- Bettendorf, Iowa; The First Century 1903-2003 by Kristen Schipper with Mary Louis Sper
- A Time We Remember Celebrating a Century in Our Quad Cities by Bill Wundram
- https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75340056
- https://qctimes.com/news/local/barb-ickes/off-limits-places-the-william-bettendorf-mansion/article_008b7c85-4eee-518a-83aa-11f45f94760b.html
- https://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1068&context=lib_pubs
- https://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6097&context=annals-of-iowa
- A Time We Remember Quad Cities, Bill Wundram
- A Time We Remember page 168
- https://johnbrassardjr.com/2017/05/03/a-city-stands-still-the-death-of-william-bettendorf/
- https://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=11351&context=annals-of-iowa
- https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-ushistory2os2xmaster/chapter/building-industrial-america-on-the-backs-of-labor/#:~:text=In%201900%2C%20the%20average%20factory,or%20below%2C%20the%20poverty%20level
- https://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=11351&context=annals-of-iowa
- The Ancestors and Descendants of the Bettendorf-Kohrs and Related Families by Darlene Paxton CG and L.T. Sloane LLB
- https://johnbrassardjr.com/2017/05/03/a-city-stands-still-the-death-of-william-bettendorf
- Bettendorf; Iowa’s Exciting City by David R. Collins, BJ Elsner, Rich J. Johnson and Mary Louis Speer
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