Rock Island Trail

The cache is small and you will need tweezers.

This is a moved cache. PatriotFan97 and hartsdale were the FTF for the old cache.

The Rock Island trail is named after The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad. The trail is on the old right-of-way where the rail used to come into town.

Here's a brief history:

In June of 1845 a group of Illinois businessmen planned to build a railroad 75 miles long, linking Rock Island, Illinois with LaSalle, Illinois. Rock Island, which served as the gateway to Chicago for riverboat passengers and goods ferried on the Mississippi River as early as the 1830s. The original Rock Island Railroad was called Rock Island & La Salle Rail Road Company and was officially incorporated on February 27, 1847. As the railroad grew, the name was changed to the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad.

Construction began October 1, 1851, in Chicago, and the first train was operated on October 10, 1852, between Chicago and Joliet. Construction continued on through La Salle, and Rock Island was reached on February 22, 1854, becoming the first railroad to connect Chicago with the Mississippi River.

In Iowa, the C&RI's incorporators created (on February 5, 1853) the Mississippi and Missouri Railroad Company (M&M), to run from Davenport to Council Bluffs, and on November 20, 1855, the first train to operate in Iowa steamed from Davenport to Muscatine. The Mississippi river bridge between Rock Island and Davenport was completed on April 22, 1856.

In 1857, Abraham Lincoln represented the Rock Island in an important lawsuit regarding bridges over navigable rivers. The suit had been brought by the owner of a steamboat which was destroyed by fire after running into the Mississippi river bridge. Lincoln argued that not only was the steamboat at fault in striking the bridge but that bridges across navigable rivers were to the advantage of the country.

At the end of 1970, it operated 7,183 miles of road on 10,669 miles of track; that year it reported 20,557 million ton-miles of revenue freight and 118 million passenger-miles.

The Rock Island Railroad ended operation in early 1980.