I was intrigued to learn that one of the entries on the recently released list of the “10 Most Endangered” historical sites in Illinois is an old house in Moline.
I happened to be in the Quad Cities not long after I read about the home, so I got C-Nor, (a.k.a. my fiancee, Chris), to program the address into his GPS.
We navigated from Davenport (IA) to Moline, (with the British lady on the Garmin directing/annoying us the whole way), until we found the lonely structure that was once owned by John Deere (the man). Read about the history of the house here.
I’m not sure why the house and /or property are called “Red Cliff.” I definitely get the “cliff” part, and you will, too, if you check out the photos I took. But the house is, um, green. The house stands out literally and figuratively; it looks out over Moline from a dramatic little look-out point while the rest of the neighborhood is un-remarkable. Chris and I walked right up to the house and looked in the windows. There are some sawhorses and tools inside, not to mention a sign out front that says “Restoration in progress,” that hint at a promising future. But the “10 Most Endangered” list says the restoration effort has been abandoned and the property is now in foreclosure.
Play the slide show for more details, or view the pictures via Flickr to get all the cutline-y goodness.
P.S. On a related note: Time.com recently published a list of the 11 most endangered national places, on which some of the causes of “danger” are proposed Wal-Marts and condo developments. (I will try to think of something non-depressing for my next post!)
Tags: abandoned, endangered, local_history, local_news, Moline, pics
I used to live in a duplex at the base of the hill that the mansion is on. It was a neighborhood in decline then, and the decline has only continuted. When I lived there the Deere place was basically a flop house, divided into a bunch of dumpy apartments, and then eventually became vacant. Years after I moved out, the apartment building across from the house I lived in was shut down because it had basically become a crack house. All of which probably explains in part why it’s been so difficult to renovate the place.
@ Tom, that’s really interesting that you lived right by there… and that it was in such flop-house conditions. They left that part out of the description on the state endangered site!
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I am so upset about this. I found out that it was listed on Ebay in the summer and it was listed for $75,000 and went up to like $184,000 shortly after but I’m not sure if anyone bought it. A guy owned it and was going to make a bed and breakfast out of it and then it got foreclosed on and the bank is who listed it on Ebay. My dad estimates it at about $500-$750,000 to renovate it so I’m pretty sure that’s why no one has done it yet. I also contacted the corporate office of Deere and asked them why they would let John Deere’s home go to waste like this and not fix it up themselves and I never got a response. I also contacted the Moline preservation society and they said they helped the private owner out with buying materials and providing hundreds of hours of volunteer work but the guy ran into finance problems and it’s so expensive to fix that it’s waiting for the right person or organization who can afford it. It’s very sad.