Roald Tweet
Writer and Narrator of 'Rock Island Lines'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.
It was from Rock Island’s rich heritage that Dr. Tweet spun his histories, biographies and "stretchers." Among his favorite topics were railroads and riverboats, which he combined on a CD in celebration of the Grand Excursion in 2004. "Rock Island Lines with Roald Tweet" received awards from the Illinois Historical Society as well as the Towner Award from the Illinois Humanities Council.
Dr. Tweet was professor emeritus, retired from the Augustana College English department, where he was professor and Conrad Bergendoff Chair in the Humanities. A writer and radio personality, Dr. Tweet was also an accomplished woodcarver and whittler.
Dr. Tweet left us in November of 2020, but his legacy lives on. You can hear many of his Rock Island Lines in podcast form here and also in a forthcoming book from WVIK and East Hall Press.
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CommunityThis is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.The Tri-City Street Railway Company would have been more than happy to share the roads with those few newfangled…
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CommunityThis is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.The first circus arrived in Rock Island less than ten years after the city was founded, and since then, each new circus…
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CommunityThis is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.A short reprint from the New York Times appeared in the Argus on July 2nd, 1892, describing the white parachute, "no…
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CommunityThis is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.You've seen it in Little House on the Prairie, or perhaps in the faded sepia photographs in your own attic—that…
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CommunityThis is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.The Strange Adventures of Jonathan Drew, a Rolling Stone, 1821-24 might have turned out neither so strange nor…
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CommunityThis is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.Few early settlers in Iowa were as idealistic about the possibilities of life there as John B. Newhall, who dedicated…
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CommunityThis is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.From the moment he arrived in Burlington, Iowa, with the first wave of settlers, John B. Newhall became an Iowa…
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CommunityThis is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.It was going to be the grandest, longest, most impressive parade ever held in the world—or at least in Moline and Rock…
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CommunityThis is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, as Karl Marx claimed, so is the road to success. Sometimes, it’s…
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CommunityThis is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.If you have ready Huckleberry Finn you may have questioned why the slave Jim ever bothered to escape from Hannibal,…