History Happenings: Wild night in downtown Cedar Rapids

A few restaurants in downtown Cedar Rapids have recently closed or reduced their hours, with at least one citing nighttime safety worries as a reason for the change.

While researching another topic, we happened upon a story from 1902 that makes it clear that this is far from the first time residents have found the nightlife in what we now think of as downtown to be a cause for concern.

On Aug. 10, 1902, the Cedar Rapids Sunday Republican ran a report under the headline, “Nightly Scenes on the ‘Levee.’ ” The subhead read, “Where the patrolman earns all his salary [and] then some.”

And the second subhead really laid it all out: “How Some of the Saloons Endeavor to Provide Attractions Without Violating the Mulct Law — Birds and Beasts and Phonographs and Dope Fiends, the City Haymarket, the Auditorium, Lunch Counter Wagons and Other Attractions.”

The mulct law was an Iowa statute that allowed some saloons to pay a “mulct” — a sum of money — to sell alcohol despite a statewide prohibition against such sales.

The area that was apparently known as “the levee” included Third Avenue between First and Second Street and First Street between Third and Second Avenue.

The reporter explained that conditions there on a Friday night “were not such as tended to the peace and safety of women who had occasion to come over to town by ways of the Third avenue bridge. … At present the police are having hard work to maintain order and if there is not an improvement perhaps the [city] council had better give First street and Third avenue entirely over to the saloons and close the Third avenue bridge to pedestrians.”

Downtown sights

The writer then detailed some of the sights to be seen, including a saloon window in which could be observed “a number of birds and animals which are undoubtedly an attraction to many people, judging from the number of juveniles and others who stand at the door of the saloon and watch them.”

Also, someone was operating a phonograph at high volume from a window above the saloon, perhaps to comply with the portion of the mulct law that prohibited music from being played in the saloon itself.

On First Street, the reporter encountered an additional animal in a saloon window, “a large specimen of wild cat, a fine animal, much finer than some of the human animals who were it admiring it last night. … [A] man named D.F. Bishop, who had previously been admiring the wild cat, was fired out of the saloon as if he had been shot out of a cannon and he struck the sidewalk heavily.”

Some heavy punches were being thrown a bit further up the street.

“James Kennedy and Henry Ryan had imbibed enough to make them believe that they were respectively Fitzsimmons and Jeffries but they could not come to a mutual agreement as to which was Fitz and which was Jeff. So they fought it out in the saloon and their arms were going like wind mill sails as they were pushed out on the sidewalk by the burly bartender.”

Readers at the time would have known that Fitzsimmons and Jeffries were two heavyweight boxing legends who had fought just a few weeks before publication of the article. Jeffries won the bout but reportedly told Fitzsimmons after the fight, “You’re the most dangerous man alive.”

It seems clear that neither man fighting in the saloon on First Street was worthy of such praise.

Women on the levee

Despite the reporter’s worry for women who might wander unawares into the degradations of the levee, some women were apparently living a difficult life in the area:

“Then there was Alice Dorsey, who drank the biggest part of an ounce of laudanum, a little more than she has been in the habit of taking at one drink. … The police say that she is one of numerous ‘dope fiends’ who get laudanum at the drug store, or one of the drugs stores, and make three drinks out of a two-ounce bottle; this is supposed to make them temporarily forget their troubles and imagine that they live in some other part of town than First street.”

The reporter notes that there “has not yet been a murder,” but almost seems eager for such a calamity so he could continue to “write a few stories of the seamy side of Cedar Rapids life.”

That so-called “seamy side” of life is a colorful part of our community’s history, and a reminder that some challenges persist or recur over time and in many variations.

Jessica Cline is a Leadership & Character Scholar at Wake Forest University. Her dad, Rob Cline, is not a scholar of any kind. They write this monthly column for The History Center. Comments: HistoricalClines@gmail.com