He created early city views and landscapes of Philadelphia, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Davenport, Iowa.

[3] In summer 1844, he moved a final time, to Davenport, Iowa, a small town in the upper Mississippi River Valley.

Wild fell gravely ill with tuberculosis[4] in the summer of 1846, and he was taken in by Davenport millinery businessman George L.

[4] On his deathbed, Wild reflected upon his childhood and said that he yearned to die in homeland in Switzerland, but it was a wish that was to not be fulfilled.

[5] Wild was laid to rest nearly on the banks of the river, which he had painted for years.