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1882 to 1927 the Watch Tower amusement park occupied the area that would become
Black Hawk State Historic Site. Local businessman Bailey Davenport, president
and superintendent of the Rock Island and Milan Steam Railway, developed the
Watch Tower as a destination for his rail line. Horse-drawn cars were phased
out in favor of electric cars in the 1890s, and daily attendance soared as high
as 15,000 as people took the streetcar to Watch Tower for concerts, operas,
vaudeville, open-air theater, fireworks, bowling, target shooting, outdoor movies
(projected on a canvas screen that often flapped in the breeze), balloon ascensions
and amusement rides. The Watch Tower boasted a figure-eight roller coaster (the
four loops made it the first of its kind west of Chicago) and the memorable
Shoot the Chutes toboggan slide, which was invented in Rock Island. Beginning
in 1898 the "Chutes" - flat boats with side runners that slid on a
greased track - carried riders down the bluff at speeds of up to 80 miles per
hour. After shooting down the slope, the boat bounced across the waters of the
Rock River. Then the "conductor" poled the boat back to the slide
an an electric cable hauled it back to the top. |
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A summer pavilion built in the 1880s was followed
by a series of inns built where the present Watch Tower Lodge stands today.
Dining and dancing were popular at the old inns. After a visit to Black
Hawk's Watch Tower, former Union General William Sherman remarked that
in his extensive travels he had never met its equal. But the park's popularity
waned in the 1920s, and in 1927 the State of Illinois purchased the site,
renaming it Black Hawk State Park. It was made a state historic site in
1987.
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