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Top Attractions in Burlington

Cascade Bridge

The Cascade Bridge is a historic structure located in Burlington, Iowa, United States. In April 1896 the Burlington City Council approved a proposal to have city engineer S.D. Eaton advertise for plans and estimates for a bridge on Main Street that would span Cascade Ravine. The Cascade Lumber Company had petitioned for the bridge. The city contracted with the Cedar Rapids, Iowa firm of Boynton & Warriner to design the structure and the Milwaukee Bridge and Iron Works to erect the span. The city was responsible for building the concrete substructure. The bridge was completed in the fall of 1896, and is composed of four spans. The span length is 160 feet , and its total length is 464 feet . The span is a Baltimore deck truss bridge with Pratt deck trusses at both ends. The structure is supported by stone and concrete abutments with concrete pedestals and a single concrete-filled steel cylinder pier. Over the years the original deck has been replaced, and concrete has been applied to the stone abutments. Otherwise the structure has been unaltered. The bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.

German Methodist Episcopal Church

The German Methodist Episcopal Church is a historic church at Seventh and Washington Streets in Burlington, Iowa, United States. The German Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in Burlington in 1845. It was the second of eight German congregations established in the city of various denominations. The Reverend Sebastian Barth, the first pastor, initially held services in a small frame house, and then in the basement of another church. The first permanent home for the congregation was a small brick church that was built in 1848. This structure was built from 1868 to 1869. It is a Victorian Gothic structure with Romanesque elements. The stone for the exterior was quarried from the site where church was built. Services in English were added in 1905 and all the services were in English by 1916. When the German and American branches of the Methodist church were merged in 1925 St. Paul's congregation was disbanded, and its members were absorbed by other congregations in Burlington. There was a small group that reorganized the German Methodist Episcopal Church at St. Paul's in 1930, but by 1938 the building was sold to the Church of the Nazarene. They occupied it until 1968. The Art Guild of Burlington bought the building in 1973. It was individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977, and as a contributing property in the Heritage Hill Historic District in 1982.

James M. Forney House

The James M. Forney House is a historic residence located in Burlington, Iowa, United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. Forney was a cabinet maker in Pennsylvania who came to Burlington in 1850 and opened a saw mill. By 1857 he sold his business to his competitors and entered into a partnership with his brother-in-law Samuel Mellinger in a tin and coopersmith firm. By 1866 he put his wealth into real estate. In 1875 Forney started another commercial venture with M. C. Buffington, the inventor and patent holder for the Improved Sarven Wheel, also known as the Buffington Wheel. They formed a partnership and opened Buffington, Forney & Company, a carriage wheel manufacturer. They patented and manufactured the Universal Wheelwright Machine, which was considered the finest wheel making machine in the world. The 2½ story, brick house is located on property that encompasses a half block at the top of a bluff. It features Italianate influences found in the main block, the roof line, and ornamental details. They are combined with the Gothic Revival influences found in the centered cross gable, the pointed arch windows in the gables, and the tracery between the columns of the front porch.

Hedge Block

Hedge Block, also known as Johnson-Rasmussen Building, is a historic commercial building located in the central business district of Burlington, Iowa, United States. It was individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. It was included as a contributing property in the West Jefferson Street Historic District in 1991 and in the Downtown Commercial Historic District in 2015. The brick commercial building was constructed in 1880 in the Late Victorian Gothic Revival style. It is a three-story structure with a limestone facade on Jefferson Street, brick along Fourth Street, and a chamfered corner that joins the two elevations. The Jefferson street facade is livelier with short towers, pilasters between the widows, and Gothic arched hoods over tall, narrow windows. The Fourth Street facade is flatter, with wider windows and stone used for the keystones, hood molds, imposts, window sills, small columns and belt courses. The building was built as an investment by local businessmen Thomas Hedge, Sr., E.H. Carpenter, John M. Gregg and Wesley Bonar. They hired Burlington architect Charles A. Dunham to design the building. Three of the men who built the building owned one of three 20-foot frontages and one owned the 27-foot corner frontage. A variety of businesses occupied the building over the years, with the Orchard City Business College, later called Elliott's Business College, occupying the second and third floors of the corner section for a time.

Mary Darwin House

The Mary Darwin House is a historic residence located in Burlington, Iowa, United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. This house served as the residence of Mary Abigail Platt Darwin from 1866 to 1886. Darwin was major figure in the Women's suffrage movement in Iowa in the late 19th century. She and her husband, Charles Ben Darwin, resided together in Burlington from 1851 until he left for Washington state in 1870. They later divorced. That same year Mary Darwin chaired the first meeting of the executive committee of the Iowa Woman's Suffrage Association. She became a popular speaker on the subject throughout the state, but she was eventually shut out of the statewide movement because of her more liberal attitudes on such topics as free love. After living in Washington, D.C. from 1876 to 1880 she returned to Burlington and became involved with the Woman's Christian Temperance Union on both the local and state levels. The house is a brick structure in a vernacular Italianate style. It is composed of a two-story main block that is three bays wide, and a projecting full-sized projection with a polygonal bay on the north side. The whole structure is built on a limestone foundation. The house features shallow hipped roofs; wide, bracketed eaves; brick friezes that are painted white; and two wooden verandas.

Augustus Caesar Dodge House

The Augustus Caesar Dodge House is a historic residence located in Burlington, Iowa, United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. Augustus C. Dodge came to Burlington as Registrar of the Land Office, a political appointment of President Martin Van Buren. As a Democrat, he went on to serve as the Iowa Territory's Delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives , one of Iowa's first two U.S. Senators , Minister to Spain under Presidents Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan , and then Mayor of Burlington . The two-story, brick house follows an L-shaped plan. It is representative of Burlington's mid-19th century architecture. The house is not a pure architectural style, but the bracketed eaves allow it to be classified as a vernacular form of the Italianate style.

Hotel Burlington

Hotel Burlington, now known as The Burlington Apartments, is a historic building located in the central business district of Burlington, Iowa, United States. It was individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. It was included as a contributing property in the Downtown Commercial Historic District in 2015. At the turn of the 20th-century Burlington had grown into a manufacturing town and a center for commercial travelers. In order to remain a leading commercial city in the state, the businessmen in the community saw a need for a quality hotel. They banded together and raised the $350,000 required for construction of the Hotel Burlington to serve the city's business, convention and tourist needs. Davenport architects Seth E. Temple and Parke T. Burrows designed the Renaissance Revival structure. It opened on February 6, 1911 with 125 guest rooms on seven floors. All of the rooms had telephones and running water, and most them had a private bath. An electric sign was placed on top of the building so that it was visible from the nearby train station. The hotel was so successful that the $100,000 east wing was added in 1923, and the top two floors were added in 1931 for about $300,000. In both instances the local businessmen funded the expansion. The hotel remained in operation with several different owners until 1980 when it went into receivership. The building was subsequently converted into an apartment building.

Lagomarcino-Grupe Company

Lagomarcino-Grupe Company, also known as Rand & Coolbaugh's Block, is a historic building located in the central business district of Burlington, Iowa, United States. It was individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013. It was included as a contributing property in the Downtown Commercial Historic District in 2015. The three-story, brick commercial building was constructed in 1868 in the Renaissance Revival style. The main facade is 14 bays wide with a round arch window in each bay on the top two floors. Brick corbelling is located at the cornice level. The first floor was originally divided into four commercial spaces. Rand & Coolbaugh's Block refers to the structure's original owners. The buildings has had a variety of tenants including spirit's wholesalers, cigar manufacturing, ice cream saloon, haberdasher, dry goods, a printer, and a freight line. Hotel rooms for the Hotel Duncan across the alley were located on the upper floors for a time. The building has long been associated with the Lagomarcino-Grupe Company from 1892-1964. The wholesale fruit business was established in Burlington in 1875 and moved into the east half of the building in 1892. By 1907 they both owned and occupied the whole building. Lagomarcino-Grupe expanded to ten locations, but Burlington remained the main location. They also expanded into soda fountains and supplies, began manufacturing ice cream, and by the 1950s they were distributing Budweiser in Burlington. In 1964 they consolidated with the Benner Tea Company, and vacated this building two years later. Lagomarcino-Grupe sold the building to Benner in 1970, who then sold it to George Coffin the same year. The building has subsequently housed other businesses.

Jagger-Churchill House

The Jagger-Churchill House is a historic residence located in Burlington, Iowa, United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. This house is representative of those built by Burlington's wealthier citizens when the city was one of Iowa's major commercial centers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Erasmus D. Jaggar, who had the house built, ran a successful linseed oil business. He and his wife Julia raised their five children here. Francis and Catherine W. Churchill bought the house from the Jaggar heirs in 1889. He founded the Churchill Drug Company, which became one of the largest wholesale drug firms in the Midwest by the time of his death in 1896. The house remained in the Churchill family until 1935. The house does not exhibit any one architectural style, but is a combination of elements of the Gothic Revival, Italianate, Queen Anne, and Eastlake styles.

Schramm Building

Schramm Building, also known as Jochims Building, is a historic building located in the central business district of Burlington, Iowa, United States. It was individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999. It was included as a contributing property in the Downtown Commercial Historic District in 2015. The brick commercial building was constructed in 1878 in a Late Victorian Gothic Revival style. It is a three-story structure for the front 68 feet and then two-stories from that point to the rear of the building. An ornamental cornice tops the facade, and each of the front window features ornamental trim. The building next door has a twin facade to this building. This building housed the first dry-goods millinery store in Burlington. A mesh concrete veneer was placed over the facade in the late 1950s. The storefront on the main level was altered in the 1960s. In the 1970s it was part of a complex of six buildings that housed the J.S. Schramm Department Store. The building was extensively renovated in 1995. The facade was restored, and the second floor was renovated to create an apartment.

Burlington and Missouri River Railroad Passenger Station

The Burlington and Missouri River Railroad Passenger Station is a historic structure located in Burlington, Iowa, United States. The station was built by the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad in 1856. It is the oldest train depot in the upper Midwest that is still standing west of the Mississippi River. The building served as a passenger station until 1868 when the railroad bridge over the Mississippi River was completed and a larger station in Burlington was required. Prior to that year a transfer ferry boat, the President, carried railroad cars and passengers across the river in warmer weather. Passengers would have to walk across the river ice in winter. The railroad continued to use the building for office space until 1884. In that year the frame, Italianate structure was moved from its Main and Market Streets location so the railroad tracks could be widened. After its use by the railroad it was converted into a residence. The structure that presently sits next door to this one is the old baggage building that was moved at the same time and converted for residential use. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

Burlington

The Burlington, Cedar Rapids & Northern Freight House, also known as the Rock Island Freight House, is a historic building located in Burlington, Iowa, United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. The freight house was built by the Burlington, Cedar Rapids and Northern Railroad (BCR&N) in 1898. It replaced a smaller brick freight house that had been built in 1873. The freight house is the only remaining structure from the BCR&N left in Burlington, and the only Victorian structure remaining on the riverfront. The railroad's shops had been located further north in an area called "The Bototms." Its original passenger depot was located in a commercial building that was located at Jefferson and Front Streets. It moved into the CB&Q's Union Depot further south along the riverfront where the Amtrak station is now located. The BCR&N, with passenger and freight service between Minneapolis and St. Louis was considered the most important north-south rail line in Iowa. In 1903 the railroad was acquired by the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad, and the freight house served that line. After the Rock Island Line went out of business the building sat empty until it was converted into a restaurant. The structure had to be restored after floods in 1993 and 2008 inundated it. The freight house is a two-story brick structure with a single-story wing on the north side. Freight from the trains passed through the seven bays on the east side, while freight from wagons, and later trucks, passed through the seven bays on the west side. Freight from riverboats on the Mississippi River was also transferred onto trains at this facility.

Burlington station

Burlington station is a train station in Burlington, Iowa, United States, served by Amtrak, the national railroad passenger system. The station, located at 300 South Main Street, is open 24 hours a day, but there are no Amtrak personnel or ticket machines at the station at any time: tickets must be purchased in advance or on the train from a conductor. The station acts as transfer hub for Burlington Urban Service (B.U.S.), a local municipal bus system; riders can transfer to every bus route in the B.U.S. system. Designed by the well-known Chicago-based architectural firm of Holabird and Root for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad (CB&Q), the station was built in 1944 and exemplifies the streamlined mid-century modern aesthetic that came into vogue in the 1930s. The two-story station, constructed of reinforced concrete, is faced in buff-colored Wisconsin Lannon fieldstone laid in a random ashlar pattern. Areas for train and bus passengers were located on the lower level while the upper story contained offices for the general superintendent, freight agent, division engineer and telephone and telegraph operators. There was also space for trainmen to sleep and relax between shifts. The two-story waiting room features walls clad in a buff Montana travertine; durable terrazzo floors; and black marble accents and trim. On one wall of the waiting room, the CB&Q inscribed many of the major achievements that it had accomplished in its namesake city, such as the testing of inventor George Westinghouse's air brakes in 1887. Following a flood in the summer of 1993, the city purchased the building from the Burlington Northern Railroad in 1994 and undertook a series of renovations including roof repairs and the installation of new windows. A “Friends of the Depot” group also formed to help the city maintain the structure and encourage ideas for its adaptive reuse. Using more than $1,000 donated by Amtrak, the Friends organized work days in 2011 and 2012 during which volunteers painted the depot’s exterior trim and caulked windows.
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