Rock Island Arsenal

Encroaching European Americans coming into the area disputed the claim of tribal ownership, and competition between the peoples led to the Black Hawk War of 1832.

In 1816 the federal government authorized the army to build Fort Armstrong here, to protect shipping on the river in the aftermath of the War of 1812 with Great Britain.

At the turn of the 20th century, it manufactured both ordnance and leather accoutrements and field gear, for an army that still relied on horses for transportation and cavalry.

Some of the Arsenal's most successful products include the M198 and M119 towed howitzers, and the gun mount for the M1 Abrams, main battle tank for the Army since the 1980s.

Before that, successive cultures of Native Americans had occupied it for thousands of years because of its strategic[citation needed] position along the Mississippi River.

Following that war, in 1814 it was the site of a U.S. Army expedition from St Louis to use the island as a guard post to control traffic on the Mississippi and maintain watch over the local Native Americans.

It was our garden, like the white people have near their big villages, which supplied us with strawberries, blackberries, gooseberries, plums, apples and nuts of different kinds."

This is often referred to as the "women draft", as they had to backfill the men leaving to fight in order to keep satisfying the war demands from factory production.

[7] Women were absolutely critical to the success of the US buildup in World War I, and played an integral role in production at Rock Island Arsenal.

Exhibits interpret the history of Rock Island Arsenal and the Union prison camp during the American Civil War, and the site's role as a military industrial facility.