Groceteria.com

Davenport and Bettendorf: https://www.groceteria.com/place/us-iowa/quad-cities/

Rock Island and Moline: https://www.groceteria.com/place/us-ill ... ad-cities/

Ooh! I often criss-crossed Iowa and Illinois on road trips back in the days when I lived in Wisconsin, so I've always been interested in the built history of this part of the country. Can't wait to see what goodies are lurking in the tables here...

Interesting how Hy-Vee's entrance in the 1980s came by succeeding Geifman's. According to this article, Hy-Vee didn't buy the company outright; rather, the Geifman family decided to exit the grocery business due to the economic toll of the farm crisis, sold their store locations, and reformed as a real estate management business.

Kroger had a spotty existence in the Quad Cities...a surprise to me, since they've continued to operate in nearby markets like Sterling, Illinois to this day! If the table is any indication, they entered the Illinois side (and not the Iowa side) by 1930, withdrew almost immediately, tentatively re-entered with single stores in Davenport and Moline in the 1960s, then left for good.

National had a presence until 1977, when Loblaws cut off several of their American limbs to stem the bleeding at the head. The Iowa side didn't yield any good artifacts, but the Illinois side was better:

927 16th Ave in East Moline is now a Family Dollar, and has a pylon and an intact original entrance configuration. It also did time as an Aldi, oddly enough. Nowadays Aldi guts and re-facades any building it touches, but their practices were obviously different in the earliest stateside days of that chain.

1617 11th St in Rock Island doesn't have a pylon, but it's an almost 100%-intact 1960s supermarket building otherwise, with floor-to-ceiling windows and aluminum-edged canopy! Not surprisingly, it's also now a Family Dollar.

1600 N Harrison St in Davenport is a great location! It's a late 1920s/early 1930s commercial building with multiple street-facing "bays" for retail tenants, including A&P. By the looks of things, A&P eventually annexed the entire building, and continued to operate there until after 1965.

2818 Brady St in Davenport is another long-lived A&P store location, lasting from the 1920s to the 1950s. From the appearance of the building, I'd expect that A&P rebuilt on the same site as a supermarket in the late 1930s or early 1940s.

I kind of like the look of this austere one-storey corner storefront on 2401 16th St that housed a Moline A&P in the 1930s and early 1940s, but that's just me.

2627 7th Ave is a well-preserved centennial with weathervane. This was converted to a Save-a-Lot by the mid-2000s; however, Street View imagery shows the store hastily rebranded as "Save More," and the newest images show it bearing the"Jass Food Mart" name. A&P lasted in the Quad Cities into the 1970s, so I'm surprised this is the only surviving centennial there.