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57-599: Planning for the RiverCenter began in the late 1970s. The working name for the facility was the “Community Activity Center," also known as “Superblock.” The facility was built in the early 1980s and opened in 1983. It was designed in a modern, open industrial look. The original building connected the Adler Theatre on the west and the Blackhawk Hotel on the east. Together they formed a convention and entertainment complex for

114-485: A "landmark", saw it "almost as soon as it came out." The composer Elie Siegmeister took it to Paris with him in 1927, and he and his wife Hannah "were always singing these songs. That was home. That was where we belonged." Sandburg said he considered working on D. W. Griffith 's Intolerance (1916) but his first film work was when he signed on to work on the production of The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) in July 1960 for

171-646: A Junior Ballroom was constructed and the Gold Room was enlarged. A new dining room called the Pompeian Room was opened. The new additions cost $ 25,000 to complete. Space on the mezzanine level could accommodate 1,000 diners. A sidewalk canopy replaced a marquee over the main entrance in 1955. In 1967 the hotel was sold to George Norman & Co. who in turn sold it to the Blackhawk American Corporation two years later for more than $ 1 million. The hotel

228-790: A dramatic reading of the Gettysburg Address , followed by an address by Sandburg. Sandburg supported the Civil Rights Movement and was the first white man to be honored by the NAACP with their Silver Plaque Award as a "major prophet of civil rights in our time." Sandburg died of natural causes in 1967 and his body was cremated. The ashes were interred under "Remembrance Rock", a granite boulder located behind his birth house in Galesburg. Much of Carl Sandburg's poetry, such as " Chicago ", focused on Chicago, Illinois , where he spent time as

285-634: A hotel servant in Denver , then a coal-heaver in Omaha. He began his writing career as a journalist for the Chicago Daily News . Later, he wrote poetry, history, biographies, novels, children's literature, and film reviews. Sandburg also collected and edited books of ballads and folklore. He spent most of his life in Illinois , Wisconsin , and Michigan before moving to North Carolina . Sandburg volunteered to join

342-458: A major renovation of the Blackhawk in 1978. The multimillion-dollar project was completed the following year. More than 7,000 people showed up to tour the renovated hotel on September 15, 1979. The Sundance Social Club opened as the hotel's restaurant. The Blackhawk was part of the "Super Block" development that opened in 1983. It was the first phase of the city's convention center that would be named

399-499: A mere biography, a view also mirrored by other reviewers. Sandburg's 1927 anthology the American Songbag enjoyed enormous popularity, going through many editions; and Sandburg himself was perhaps the first American urban folk singer, accompanying himself on solo guitar at lectures and poetry recitals, and in recordings, long before the first or the second folk revival movements (of the 1940s and 1960s, respectively). According to

456-416: A modern industrial look and added 49,000 square feet (4,600 m) to the facility. A second atrium covered Perry Street, another large hall, four break out rooms and an executive board room were added. A skywalk above East Third Street connected the two sections of the facility. Kaiserslautern Square Park, named for one of Davenport's sister cities, was built to the west of the new building. The expansion of

513-645: A newspaper, and also joined the Wisconsin Social Democratic Party, the name by which the Socialist Party of America was known in the state. Sandburg served as a secretary to Emil Seidel , socialist mayor of Milwaukee from 1910 to 1912. Carl Sandburg later remarked that Milwaukee was where he got his bearings and that the rest of his life had been "the unrolling of a scene that started up in Wisconsin". Sandburg met Lilian Steichen (1883–1977) at

570-624: A one-volume edition in 1954 prepared by Sandburg. Sandburg's Lincoln scholarship had an enormous impact on the popular view of Lincoln. The books were adapted by Robert E. Sherwood for his Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1938) and David Wolper 's six-part dramatization for television, Sandburg's Lincoln (1974). He recorded excerpts from the biography and some of Lincoln's speeches for Caedmon Records in New York City in May 1957. He

627-682: A prophetic voice. A visiting philanthropist, Joel Spingarn , who was also an official of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People , read Sandburg's columns with interest and asked to publish them, as The Chicago Race Riots, July, 1919 . Sandburg's popular multivolume biography Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years , 2 vols. (1926) and Abraham Lincoln: The War Years , 4 vols. (1939) are collectively "the best-selling, most widely read, and most influential book[s] about Lincoln." The books have been through many editions, including

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684-526: A renovated Gold Room. A bowling alley was re-created in the basement level and shops were incorporated into the main level along with a restaurant and lounge. A new fitness center and a swimming pool, as well as a business center, were also created. Carl Sandburg Carl August Sandburg (January 6, 1878 – July 22, 1967) was an American poet, biographer, journalist, and editor. He won three Pulitzer Prizes : two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln . During his lifetime, Sandburg

741-639: A reporter for the Chicago Daily News and The Day Book . His most famous description of the city is as "Hog Butcher for the World/Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat/Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler,/Stormy, Husky, Brawling, City of the Big Shoulders." Sandburg earned Pulitzer Prizes for his collection The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg , Corn Huskers , and for his biography of Abraham Lincoln ( Abraham Lincoln: The War Years ). Sandburg

798-506: A second Poetry Pulitzer in 1951 for Complete Poems . In 1945, he moved to Connemara , a 246-acre (100 ha) rural estate in Flat Rock, North Carolina . Here, he produced a little over a third of his total published work and lived with his wife, daughters, and two grandchildren. On February 12, 1959, in commemorations of the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln 's birth, Congress met in joint session to hear actor Fredric March give

855-526: A separate entity they will advertise and market themselves together. All three entities form one complex that is connected by skywalks and includes a total of 116,700 square feet (11,000 m ) of space. On March 6, 2013, the owner, Hotel Blackhawk, LLC, entered the property into the Marriott Autograph Collection of luxury hotels, a group of independently owned and operated hotels associated with Marriott Hotels and Resorts. The Hotel Blackhawk

912-464: A two-volume biography, in 1926, The American Songbag (1927), and a book of poems called Good Morning, America (1928) in Elmhurst. The Sandburg house at 331 South York Street in Elmhurst was demolished and the site is now a parking lot. The family moved to Michigan in 1930. Sandburg won the 1940 Pulitzer Prize for History for the four-volume The War Years , the sequel to his Abraham Lincoln , and

969-656: A year, receiving an "in creative association with Carl Sandburg" credit on the film. Carl Sandburg's boyhood home in Galesburg is now operated by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency as the Carl Sandburg State Historic Site . The site contains the cottage Sandburg was born in, a modern visitor center, and small garden with a large stone called Remembrance Rock, under which his and his wife's ashes are buried. Sandburg's home of 22 years in Flat Rock, Henderson County, North Carolina ,

1026-515: Is also remembered by generations of children for his Rootabaga Stories and Rootabaga Pigeons , a series of whimsical, sometimes melancholy stories he originally created for his own daughters. The Rootabaga Stories were born of Sandburg's desire for "American fairy tales" to match American childhood. He felt that the European stories involving royalty and knights were inappropriate, and so populated his stories with skyscrapers, trains, corn fairies and

1083-745: Is an eleven-story brick and terra cotta building located in Downtown Davenport , Iowa , United States. It is a Marriott Autograph Collection property. The hotel is connected to the north building of the RiverCenter , Davenport's convention center, and across the street from the RiverCenter south building. The hotel is just down the street from the Adler Theatre . The Blackhawk has been host to several high-profile people including Presidents Barack Obama , Herbert Hoover , Richard Nixon , writer Carl Sandburg , and boxer Jack Dempsey . Actor Cary Grant

1140-523: Is now a Four Diamond hotel (AAA), managed by Innkeeper Hospitality Services, LLC of St. Louis, and has been voted the best hotel in Iowa for the last three years by Business Insider. It continues to be a major force behind the resurgence of Downtown Davenport.  The Hotel Blackhawk was designed by the Davenport architectural firm of Temple & Burrows. Davenport architect Arthur Ebeling served as an associate on

1197-739: Is preserved by the National Park Service as the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site . Carl Sandburg College is located in Sandburg's birthplace of Galesburg, Illinois . During the Spanish-American War, Sandburg was stationed at Camp Alger in Fairfax County, Virginia and so the county has both a Sandburg Road, near the spot where the camp was located, and a Carl Sandburg Middle School. On January 6, 1978,

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1254-460: The Quad City area. The facility offered 20,500 square feet (1,900 m) of space in a large hall and six breakout rooms. An atrium was built over what was Perry Street. Minimalist artist Sol LeWitt was commissioned to provide artwork for the RiverCenter. He created Tower 1984 and two wall drawings. They were Davenport's first public art project. The tower, which was designed for a plaza that

1311-633: The University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee , carries a plaque commemorating Sandburg's roles as an organizer for the Social Democratic Party and as personal secretary to Emil Seidel , Milwaukee's first Socialist mayor. Carl Sandburg Library opened in Livonia, Michigan , in 1961. The name was recommended by the Library Commission as an example of an American author representing the best of literature of

1368-538: The "Five Marvelous Pretzels". In 1919, Sandburg was assigned by his editor at the Daily News to do a series of reports on the working classes and tensions among whites and African Americans . The impetus for these reports were race riots that had broken out in other American cities. Ultimately, major riots broke out in Chicago too, but much of Sandburg's writing on the issues before the riots caused him to be seen as having

1425-542: The 100th anniversary of his birth, the United States Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp honoring Sandburg. The spare design consists of a profile originally drawn by his friend William A. Smith in 1952, along with Sandburg's own distinctive autograph. The Rare Book & Manuscript Library (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) (RBML) houses the Carl Sandburg Papers. The bulk of

1482-814: The Midwest. Carl Sandburg had taught at the University of Michigan for a time. Galesburg opened Sandburg Mall in 1975, named in honor of Sandburg. The Chicago Public Library installed the Carl Sandburg Award, annually awarded for contributions to literature. Amtrak added the Carl Sandburg train in 2006 to supplement the Illinois Zephyr on the Chicago – Quincy route. Carl Sandburg Middle School in Alexandria, Virginia, part of Fairfax County Public Schools ,

1539-776: The Milwaukee Social Democratic Party office in 1907, and they married the next year in Milwaukee. Lilian's brother was the photographer Edward Steichen . Sandburg with his wife, whom he called Paula, raised three daughters. Their first daughter, Margaret, was born in 1911. The Sandburgs moved to Harbert, Michigan , and then to suburban Chicago , Illinois in 1912 after he was offered a job by a Chicago newspaper. They lived in Evanston , Illinois, before settling at 331 South York Street in Elmhurst , Illinois, from 1919 to 1930. During

1596-488: The Moderne style of the nearby Hotel Mississippi , built in 1931. The building is 140 feet (43 m) tall. It is U-shaped to allow for windows in all the rooms and to allow for air circulation and light. The structure is covered in dark-colored bricks that contrast with the white terra cotta. This surface combination sets it apart from the surface monochrome of dressed stone that was being used in other commercial buildings in

1653-566: The RKO Orpheum Theater on November 25, 1931. The Art Deco style theater was designed by A.S. Graven of Chicago . Henry Dreyfuss of New York City designed the interior. Restoration of the old RKO Orpheum began in 1981. Lee Enterprises made a $ 1 million contribution for an endowment. The theater was renamed the Adler after newspaper publishers E.P. Adler and his son Philip, both of whom led Lee Enterprises. Renovations, which included increasing

1710-435: The RiverCenter was paid for in part by contributions from Riverboat Gambling, which came to the area in 1991. The Perry Park Green Space was completed on the south side of the building along East Second Street in 2002 The convention center and the theater are owned by the city of Davenport and they have been operated by VenuWorks of Ames, Iowa since 1998. The Adler Theatre is a 2,400-seat performing arts center. It opened as

1767-511: The RiverCenter. The hotel would also serve as the convention center's caterer. John E. Connelly , a Pittsburgh developer, bought the hotel in 1990 and it became a part of his gambling enterprise that included the President riverboat. The hotel passed to the Isle of Capri Casino in 2000 when it bought the Davenport riverboat gambling operation. On February 12, 2006, a fire started in a meth lab on

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1824-593: The RiverCenter/Adler Theatre, Hotel Blackhawk, and the Radisson Quad City Plaza Hotel announced a cooperative marketing agreement branding themselves the “Quad Cities Event Center.” While each remains a separate entity they advertise and market themselves together. All three entities form one complex that is connected by skywalks and includes a total of 116,700 square feet (11,000 m) of space. Blackhawk Hotel The Hotel Blackhawk

1881-560: The city. An elevator shaft was added to the east side of the building in the 1978–1979 renovation. Originally the lobby contained a two-story atrium, but it was enclosed in later years to create additional meeting space. The atrium was restored as a part of the 2010 renovation to the building. A new entrance was also added to the east side of the building facing the parking lot. Upon its 2010 re-opening, Hotel Blackhawk includes 20 one- and two-bedroom apartments, 130 guestrooms, nine extended-stay rooms and banquet and meeting facilities that include

1938-705: The collection was purchased directly from Carl Sandburg and his family. In total, the RBML owns over 600 cubic feet of Sandburg's papers, including photographs, correspondence, and manuscripts. In 2011, Sandburg was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. Carl Sandburg Village was a 1960s urban renewal project in the Near North Side, Chicago . Financed by the city, it is located between Clark and LaSalle St. between Division Street and North Ave. Solomon & Cordwell, architects. In 1979, Carl Sandburg Village

1995-525: The construction of the Blackhawk Hotel, the Saratoga Hotel occupied the land. On February 16, 1915, the first seven floors (225 rooms) of the "New Fireproof Hotel Blackhawk" were completed. The building was built at a cost of $ 1 million by Davenport businessman W.F. Miller. McCarthy Improvement Company was the general contractor. In 1920 the remaining stories, eight through eleven, were added and it gave

2052-404: The construction project. It features Italian Renaissance design elements along with modern Art Deco . The Italian Renaissance is featured on the rusticated stonework on the entry-level, the granite pedestals and terra cotta pilasters on the corners of the main façade, and the decorative pediments of the windows on the second floor. The Art Deco elements are found in the rolled of the corners of

2109-486: The eighth floor. The hotel had been deteriorating steadily since it was purchased by the Isle of Capri. The City of Davenport took over the property from the Isle of Capri. In October 2008, a development agreement was signed which gave ownership of the property to Hotel Blackhawk, LLC, an affiliate of St. Louis-based developer Restoration St. Louis, Inc. The company announced plans for a $ 46 million-plus restoration. BSI Construction

2166-521: The ever-lengthening shelf of really good books about Lincoln." Historian Milo Milton Quaife criticized Sandburg for not documenting his sources and questioned the accuracy of The Prairie Years , noting they contain a number of factual errors. Others have complained The Prairie Years and The War Years contain too much material that is neither biography nor history, saying the books are instead "sentimental poeticizing" by Sandburg. Sandburg himself may have viewed his works more as an American epic than as

2223-415: The four-volume The War Years . But Sandburg's works on Lincoln also received substantial criticism. William E. Barton , who had published a Lincoln biography in 1925, wrote that Sandburg's book "is not history, is not even biography" because of its lack of original research and uncritical use of evidence, but Barton nevertheless thought it was "real literature and a delightful and important contribution to

2280-576: The hotel 400 rooms. Walsh Company was the general contractor for the addition. In 1916 the Blackhawk Hotel Corporation expanded with the purchase of the Davenport Hotel , which is located two blocks to the west. Over the next twenty years, Blackhawk Hotels purchased properties in St. Paul, Minnesota and Des Moines and Mason City, Iowa . The corporation was reorganized in 1935. That same year

2337-404: The hotel to low-rent housing was delayed in early 1972, and Blackhawk American Corp. announced that the hotel would remain open despite the setbacks. On January 20, 1972, plans for converting the Blackhawk to elderly housing were dropped. On December 13, 1973, stockholders were told the hotel was bankrupt. A foreclosure lawsuit was filed against the hotel on March 14, 1974. A U.S. Marshal 's sale of

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2394-574: The military during the Spanish–American War and was stationed in Puerto Rico with the 6th Illinois Infantry, disembarking at Guánica , Puerto Rico , on July 25, 1898. Sandburg was never actually called to battle. He attended West Point for just two weeks before failing a mathematics and grammar exam. Sandburg returned to Galesburg and entered Lombard College but left without a degree in 1903. He then moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin , to work for

2451-606: The musicologist Judith Tick: As a populist poet, Sandburg bestowed a powerful dignity on what the '20s called the "American scene" in a book he called a "ragbag of stripes and streaks of color from nearly all ends of the earth ... rich with the diversity of the United States." Reviewed widely in journals ranging from the New Masses to Modern Music , the American Songbag influenced a number of musicians. Pete Seeger, who calls it

2508-489: The property on June 28, 1974, failed to produce a buyer as did an auction in November of the same year. The Small Business Administration , who now owned the hotel, considered selling the property for less than the $ 820,000 they had put into the building. The Blackhawk was sold to Blackhawk Hotel Associates, a subsidiary of Knightsbridge, for $ 1.2 million on January 28, 1975. An auction of the hotel's furnishings and accessories

2565-616: The size of the stage, took place in 2005 and 2006. The theater is home to the Quad City Symphony Orchestra and Ballet Quad Cities . It hosts Broadway touring companies and other productions and performances. The theater and the former Hotel Mississippi, which surrounds it, are listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Hotel Mississippi-RKO Orpheum Theater. On September 22, 2010,

2622-520: The spelling of their last name to "Sandburg". At the age of thirteen, he left school and began driving a milk wagon. From the age of about fourteen until he was seventeen or eighteen, he worked as a porter at the Union Hotel barbershop in Galesburg. After that, he was on the milk route again for 18 months. He then became a bricklayer and a farm laborer on the wheat plains of Kansas . After an interval spent at Lombard College in Galesburg, he became

2679-484: The terracotta pilasters and the streamlined feeling in general of the form itself. The simplified Renaissance Revival style of the hotel is in keeping with the Neoclassicism of other major commercial buildings that were being built at the time in Davenport. When the top four floors were added it required the removal of the building's original cornice . The resulting termination of the structure makes it more similar to

2736-515: The time, Sandburg wrote Chicago Poems (1916), Cornhuskers (1918), and Smoke and Steel (1920). In 1919 Sandburg won a Pulitzer Prize "made possible by a special grant from The Poetry Society " for his collection Cornhuskers . Sandburg also wrote three children's books in Elmhurst: Rootabaga Stories , in 1922, followed by Rootabaga Pigeons (1923), and Potato Face (1930). Sandburg also wrote Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years ,

2793-486: Was awarded a Grammy Award in 1959 for Best Performance – Documentary Or Spoken Word (Other Than Comedy) for his recording of Aaron Copland 's Lincoln Portrait with the New York Philharmonic . Some historians suggest more Americans learned about Lincoln from Sandburg than from any other source. The books garnered critical praise and attention for Sandburg, including the 1940 Pulitzer Prize for History for

2850-479: Was converted to condominium ownership. Numerous schools are named for Sandburg throughout the United States, and he was present at some of these schools' dedications. (Some years after attending the 1954 dedication of Carl Sandburg High School in Orland Park, Illinois , Sandburg returned for an unannounced visit; the school's principal at first mistook him for a hobo .) Sandburg Halls , a student residence hall at

2907-523: Was held the following month. In June of that year phase one of a nearly $ 1 million renovation was completed. A year later the Davenport Bank and Trust Company foreclosed on the hotel's $ 990,000 mortgage. Judge Max Werling ordered the Blackhawk closed on June 29, 1976. The bank bought the hotel in October of that year at a sheriff's sale for $ 1 million. The building sat empty until Phillips Enterprises began

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2964-465: Was more than the voice of America, more than the poet of its strength and genius. He was America." Carl Sandburg was born in a three-room cottage at 313 East Third Street in Galesburg, Illinois , to Clara Mathilda (née Anderson) and August Sandberg, both of Swedish ancestry. He adopted the nickname "Charles" or "Charlie" in elementary school at about the same time he and his two oldest siblings changed

3021-466: Was never built, was moved to the plaza in front of the Figge Art Museum in October 2004 and one of the wall drawings was moved to the museum at a later date. A feasibility study was conducted and it was determined that the RiverCenter could be expanded. In the fall of 1993 the expansion opened on the south side of East Third Street, across the street from the Blackhawk Hotel. It was also designed in

3078-548: Was once again renovated in 1969. The following year the hotel upgraded its heating system from coal and oil to natural gas. Plans to convert the hotel into a 300 unit low-rent facility for the elderly were announced on October 13, 1971. A petition for foreclosure on the mortgage was filed in Scott County District Court on December 16, 1971. Financing by the Federal Housing Administration to convert

3135-519: Was selected as the general contractor for the project. Demolition work began in January 2009 and renovation work commenced in April of the same year. The hotel re-opened on December 15, 2010. On September 22, 2010, the RiverCenter/Adler Theatre, Hotel Blackhawk, and the Radisson Quad City Plaza Hotel announced a cooperative marketing agreement branding themselves the "Quad Cities Event Center." While each remains

3192-443: Was staying at the Blackhawk Hotel when he died in Davenport. The hotel named rooms 412–414 the "Nixon Suite". Big bands such as Guy Lombardo and Stan Kenton played at the Blackhawk on many occasions. It has been individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Blackhawk Hotel since 1983. In 2020 it was included as a contributing property in the Davenport Downtown Commercial Historic District . Before

3249-437: Was widely regarded as "a major figure in contemporary literature", especially for volumes of his collected verse, including Chicago Poems (1916), Cornhuskers (1918), and Smoke and Steel (1920). He enjoyed "unrivaled appeal as a poet in his day, perhaps because the breadth of his experiences connected him with so many strands of American life". When he died in 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson observed that "Carl Sandburg

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