Emergency Crime Scene and Biohazard Cleanup in Rock Island, IL

Rock Island is the county seat of Rock Island County, sitting at the confluence of the Rock and Mississippi rivers, and is one of the Quad Cities along with Moline, East Moline, Davenport, and Bettendorf.

The city takes its name from the island across the river, now called Arsenal Island, which is the largest island in the Mississippi River.

Before American settlement, the area held Saukenuk, a major village of the Sauk people and their capital, and the United States built Fort Armstrong on the island in 1816; the island was a headquarters during the Black Hawk War of 1832.

The mainland community was laid out in 1835 as Stephenson, renamed Rock Island, incorporated as a town in 1841, and became a city in 1849.

Rock Island is home to the Rock Island Arsenal, established by the U.S. Army in 1862 on Arsenal Island; it is the largest government-owned weapons manufacturing arsenal in the United States and employs about 6,000 people.

During the Civil War the island held a Union prisoner-of-war camp for Confederate soldiers, and both Union and Confederate cemeteries remain on the island today.

The first railroad bridge across the Mississippi River was completed between Rock Island's Arsenal Island and Davenport, Iowa, in 1856.

The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad, known informally as the Rock Island Line, was founded in Rock Island in 1851 and grew to serve fourteen states before ending in bankruptcy in 1980.

Augustana College, founded in Chicago in 1860 by Swedish immigrants, moved to Rock Island in 1875 and remains a leading private liberal arts college in the city.

Black Hawk State Historic Site, at the city's southern edge, preserves the site of the old Sauk and Fox villages and includes a museum devoted to tribal life.