Hamburg Historic District (Davenport, Iowa)
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Hamburg Historic District
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Overview
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| Location | Roughly bounded by 5th, Vine, Ripley, and 9½ Streets, Davenport, Iowa |
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| Coordinates | 41°31′36″N 90°34′57″W / 41.52667°N 90.58250°WCoordinates: 41°31′36″N 90°34′57″W / 41.52667°N 90.58250°W |
| Area | 106 acres (43 ha) |
| Architect | Benjamin Aufderheide Frederick G. Clausen Gustav A. Hanssen Deidrich J. Harfst Thomas McClelland et. al. |
| Architectural style | Late Victorian |
| MPS | Davenport MRA |
| NRHP Reference # |
83003656 (original) 100000541 (increase) |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | November 18, 1983 |
| Boundary increase | January 17, 2017 |
| Designated DRHP | November 1, 1999 |
Hamburg Historic District is a residential neighborhood located on a bluff northwest of downtown Davenport, Iowa, United States. It is listed on the Davenport Register of Historic Properties and on the National Register of Historic Places. The historic district is where the city’s middle and upper income German community lived in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Germans were the largest ethnic group to settle in Davenport.
Hamburg is located to the northwest of Davenport's central business district. The neighborhood itself goes as far north as Locust Street and to the west as far as Division Street. The historic district's boundaries were reduced to the section between Fifth and Ninth (south to north) and Ripley and Vine (east to west). It includes the highest concentration of historic buildings and some of the best examples of architectural styles in the neighborhood. The Mississippi River is located five blocks to the south. There is a gradual slope to the land as one travels to the north. After the alley north of Fifth Street it dramatically rises into a bluff. It peaks at about Seventh Street and descends less dramatically to Ninth Street. The southern part of this area provides a prominent view of the cityscape and the river. For this reason it became a prime location for the middle and upper income Germans who immigrated to Davenport to build their homes. The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad tracks built along Fifth Street are yet another boundary for the area. The north side of Sixth Street (along the bluffline) that extends from Ripley Street to Gaines Street is known as the "Gold Coast."
German immigrants started moving into the city in noticeable numbers starting in the late 1840s. In 1848, 250 Germans came to Davenport and by 1850, that number rose to close to 3,000, or 20% of the city’s population. German immigration remained strong through the 1880s. The Iowa census of 1890 showed that a quarter of Scott County's residents were natives of Germany. A disproportionate number of those immigrants came from Schleswig-Holstein, which was in a border and personal rights dispute with Denmark in the 1840s. German “free thinkers” from the two states were leaving in large numbers and many came to Davenport. Their political and philosophical thinking tended to be anti-clerical and secular. It would eventually dominate Davenport politics and set the city apart from communities of similar size in the Midwest. Other German immigrants to Davenport came from Bavaria, Hamburg, Hanover, and Mecklenburg. Davenport’s small Hungarian community, refugees from the revolution against Austria in the 1840s, generally lived in the German neighborhoods, as well.
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