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Kahl Building

This Roald Tweet on Rock Island.

When the brand new ten-story Kahl Building opened at the corner of West Third and Ripley streets in Davenport late in December of 1920, Rock Islanders no longer needed to travel abroad to see the seven wonders of the world. Bits and pieces of that world had come to them. And it was all available for viewing.

As with so much American architecture at the time, the Kahl Building was an electric mix of past and future, European and American, the practical and the aesthetic. Eastern newspapers called the building Mid-America's newest skyscraper," yet the lobby was a façade of the Doges Palace in Venice, complete with cathedral ceiling. Two tall bronze light sconces at the entrance, the brass and copper door trim, and the walls of swirling pink Alabama marble somewhat disguised the barber shop, the lunch counter, and the four elevators and their operators in bellmen’s caps.

Just in case all this was not to one's taste, nearly every window was decorated with gargoyles and other gothic designs accenting the white terra cotta exterior.

Even more architectural thrills awaited those who entered the ground level Capitol Theater, ornate as any opera house with Grecian murals and crystal chandeliers, and a ceiling with overtones of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, all leading toward a screen for showing the new moving pictures.

The man who built all this watched it rise from his hilltop mansion six blocks away. Henry Kahl had begun life in poverty, a school drop-out. His quick mind and a solid work ethic brought him to own the construction company where he began as a mule driver. Henry Kahl's building was more than a theater and office building; it was his monument. But a monument to what?

Among the gargoyles and chandeliers, and the marble, brass, and copper, there was no sign of mules, or of humble beginnings. The building reflected opulence and conspicuous consumption rather than hard work. I wonder if it was only accidental that the feature which inaugurated the Capitol Theater that December was a silent film called "The Man Who Lost Himself"?

Rock Island Lines with Roald Tweet is underwritten by Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois.

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Beginning 1995, historian and folklorist Dr. Roald Tweet spun his stories of the Mississippi Valley to a devoted audience on WVIK. Dr. Tweet published three books as well as numerous literary articles and recorded segments of "Rock Island Lines." His inspiration was that "kidney-shaped limestone island plunked down in the middle of the Mississippi River," a logical site for a storyteller like Dr. Tweet.