HISTORICAL CONTEXT

"I would build but common log cabins, or huts, for both men and officers, giving them good floors, windows and doors, stables, very common, but close and roomy, Pickets, Blockhouses and such like, not at all. The buildings to be placed in relations of comfort, convenience and good taste; and of defense, so far as the same may comply with the first rule."

-Captain James Allen, December 1842

“For fifty years, beginning in 1862, a covered bridge spanned the Raccoon River at the Point. The first one was swept away by ice in 1865. Th e bridge was rebuilt twice after that and was destroyed again by ice in February of 1916, shortly before the work in which the river channel at the confluence was moved about 2,000 feet to the south was completed.”

-Richard Dressler, 2005

“August 29, 1866, must ever stand out as a great day in the history of Des Moines. Readers of these pages have followed the history of those ten long years of planning and waiting and working for railroads in the days of old Fort Des Moines. They have read, in outline, the later story of hope deferred, beginning with the removal of the Capitol to the well-nigh inaccessible valley city on the Des Moines and continued on through hard times, through disturbing rumors of war, through the awful experiences of war, and through those last months of individual sacrifice for the completion of the Valley road,—and, now, the whistle of the engine announced to eagerly waiting ears the actual fact!—the physical entrance of the Valley railroad into Des Moines ! The local press had faithfully announced the building of the road from Keokuk to the northwest, its arrival in Oskaloosa, in Pella, in Monroe, in Prairie City, at Woodville Station, and at last at Des Moines!”

-Johnson Brigham, pg. 243

“... what appears on the city maps as Market Place, but which is in reality a tangle of railroad tracks, cannot be used except for market purposes. It is claimed by county officials the railroads were never authorized to use the property and are trespassers on what belongs to the general public.”

-Des Moines Register, 5 June 1896

"'As the city developed,' Gourley notes, 'the commercial center moved north to Court, Walnut, and Locust streets. The former fort area became a warehousing and industrial area. The Des Moines Valley Railroad crossed the Des Moines River along Market Street in 1866, and the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad tracks were built a little farther to the south by 1880. Because the area was low and subject to flooding, fill had been brought in earlier to raise the elevation, so the mid-19th-century surface lay underneath a protective layer of fill.'”

-Dressler, pg. 18

“Emil Schmidt, president of the Des Moines City railway and the Inter-Urban railway company, will resign in May to become the president of the Des Moines Foundry and Machine company, recently incorporated at $100,000… The buildings will consist of the main building to be used as a combine steel and gray Iron, brass, and bronze foundry, and separate buildings, such as the machine shop, pattern shop, heating plant and office, will be erected along strictly fireproof lines, consisting wholly of brick, glass, and steel, with gyp tile roofs… The site for the new plant lies between South West Sixteenth and South West Eighteenth streets, just south of the Rock Island and M. & St. L. lines.”

-Des Moines Register, 15 February 1920

“The Des Moines Foundry and Machine company’s new plant, built at a cost of $350,000, is already turning out street electroliers, contractors’ supplies, and other castings… The plant… has twelve acres of land and 1,000 feet of trackage. Additional equipment will be in place early in January and the company expects to add to its working force to bring the total up to about seventy-five men.”

-Des Moines Register, 12 December 1920

"It's just incredibly important visually to get those buildings down, and then we can talk about what the future development would be."

-Scott Sanders, City Manager