Rock Island: An American History (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780615661827)

I grew up in Rock Island, and until I moved to Milwaukee in 1962 to attend Marquette University, I thought it was the world's grandest city. Although Rock Island is a remarkable city with a rich history, it no longer has the excitement and cultural advantages of America's big cities, nor did it ever have the majestic beauty of the Rocky Mountains, the four-season splendor of New England, or the seductively mild year-round climate of southern California. However, it still has some of the friendliest, hardest-working people in the world, and one of the most diverse populations anywhere. Located on the banks of what was once the most scenic spot on the Mississippi River, Rock Island was a fantastic place to grow up, and its history is remarkably representative of the best nation in the history of mankind. At Marquette I studied Civil Engineering -- well, "studied" may be an overstatement -- but I gained an appreciation for the good, and the bad, that engineers do. And while working for IBM as a systems engineer in Milwaukee, I took a vacation to Lake Tahoe. I was shocked to find that during the bleak, gray winter that descends on the Midwest from Thanksgiving to Easter, in the West, on most days brilliant sunshine glistens on pristine snow from the Rockies to the Sierras. Leaving behind everything but Peggy Wilcox, we fled to Truckee, CA, where we remain today. For the next 35 years, I ran a small company that designed computer systems for casinos that enabled them to more efficiently "win" money from their patrons. I'm now retired, and have more time for daughter, Meg, and grandson, Ethan "Huck" Raymore, and to fill in knowledge gaps created by over-focusing on math and science. It was while reading about the soldiers who came to take Rock Island from Black Hawk, the warrior who led the defense of the 5,000 Sauk Indians who lived at the site, that I asked why were European immigrants entitled to Sauk lands -- it turned out to be a very questionable right of ownership, as was most of the land "acquired" from Indians. More reading revealed that not only did Rock Island spring from sketchy, rough and tumble beginnings, but so did the rest of the country, and that our nation's history from Columbus' landing through World War II, was rowdier and more violent than the version my classmates and I received in the Rock Island school system. Rock Island is an unvarnished history of a frontier river town and of America.