By any standard, Bettendorf, Iowa, is a fairly young city, having awakened from its sleepy rural beginnings in the nineteenth century to become an industrial center in the first half of the twentieth century and, now, on the precipice of a new millennium, it is a city becoming what is yet unrealized, but not unimagined. With more than two hundred historic photographs, this volume offers up chapters of American history in its stories from the heartland: a packet of seeds that started an agricultural dynasty; a slave who took a stand for freedom and changed the course of the nation; two...

Rock Island, Illinois, named All American City by Life magazine in 1955, is a mighty river town that prides itself on its leadership and sense of community. In every house on every street, there is a story to be told of how the residents came to be a part of this unique city. A few Rock Islanders can trace their roots back to the first white settlements of Farnhamsburg and Stephenson; fewer still go even further back than that, to the villages of Wappello and Keokuk and the Sauk warrior, Black Hawk. In Rock Island: All American City, the authors invite us to join them on a visual tour that...