Moline

Moline, a city of Rock Island county, Illinois, U.S.A., in the north-west part of the state, on the Mississippi river, adjoining the city of Rock Island and opposite the upper end of Rock Island. Pop. (1900), 17,248, of whom 5699 were foreignborn, principally Swedes and Belgians; (1910 census), 24,199. It is served by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, and the Davenport, Rock Island & North-Western railways. A channel in the Mississippi river here, 250 ft. wide and 4 ft. deep at low water, projected in 1905, was completed in 1908; and in 1907 a lock was finished which affords a draught of 6 ft. and is a part of the 6 ft. channel improvement of Rock Island Rapids. The city has large and varied manufacturing industries; water-power is derived from a dam maintained by the Moline Water-Power Company; and there is a large electric-power plant. The most important industry is the manufacture of agricultural implements (particularly steel ploughs, which seem to have been made here first in the United States, and cornplanters). Among the other manufactures are boilers and gasolene engines, wagons and carriages, automobiles, and pianos and organs. The Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific railway has a goo-acre yard and machine shop east of the city limits, and there is a large U.S. arsenal on Rock Island. Moline was settled in 1832, laid out as a town in 1842, and was chartered as a city in 1855 and rechartered in 1872.