Join us for the 2010 Henry Farnam Dinner March 12

You are cordially invited to the Seventh Annual Quad Cities Henry Farnam Dinner celebrating two significant Quad Cities sesquicentennial events: The 1860 formations of the Weyerhaeuser & Denkmann Lumber Company and the founding of Augustana College.

Owned by the Van Sant Towing Company, the Lydia Van Sant was rebuilt from the Netta Durant at LeClaire in 1899 and used as a bow boat with the J. W. Van Sant. - Photo courtesy of Putnam Museum and IMAX Theatre, Davenport, IA

The dinner will be March 12, 2010 at the i Wireless Center, 1201 River Drive, Moline, IL.

Cocktails (cash bar) and displays - 5:30 p.m.
Dinner - 6:30 p.m.
Program - 7:30 p.m.

Tickets $40 per person. A reserved table of 10 is $375.

The lumber industry was fundamental to the nineteenth century vitality of Mississippi River towns in the Quad Cities area. Logs were harvested in Wisconsin and Minnesota and floated down the river for milling in Davenport, Rock Island, Moline, Muscatine, and Clinton. The Weyerhaeuser & Denkmann Lumber Company, formed in 1860 in Rock Island, was one of the most important and influential companies in this industry.

Augustana College, another historically important Quad Cities institution, was also founded in 1860. Today Augustana plays a major role in the cultural and educational fabric of the Quad Cities area and will continue to do so in the future. One of many ways that Augustana embraces its history is through ownership and maintenance of House on the Hill, the historic Weyerhaeuser mansion.

Host for the evening will be Charles Mahaffey, Professor of Geography at Augustana. The evening’s program will begin with a pictorial history of nineteenth-century Midwestern logging, lumber rafts, and lumber milling presented by Henry Farnam Committee member Gayle Rein.

Then our featured speaker Tom Rasmussen will give an illustrated presentation:

The Weyerhaeuser’s Early Years in Coal Valley and Rock Island

Mr. Rasmussen is the great-great grandson of Frederick & Sarah Weyerhaeuser. His mother’s grandfather was the only one of the Weyerhaeuser’s seven children to be born at The House on the Hill, which was donated to Augustana College in 1954. Rasmussen, who lives in Minnesota, is a director of The Rock Island Company, the last remnant of Weyerhaeuser’s Rock Island Lumber Company, and is active in preserving Weyerhaeuser Family history.

A variety of displays will be featured at the dinner, and the Henry Farnam Dinner Committee will conduct a raffle to help offset the costs of the Farnam Dinner program.

From 1900 to 1910, the Van Sant Towing Company chartered the Lydia Van Sant and the J. W. Van Sant to the Taber Lumber Company of Keokuk. - Photo courtesy of Putnam Museum and IMAX Theatre, Davenport, IA

Contact Elizabeth or Curtis Roseman at 309.764.6122
or email: croseman@usc.edu with questions.

We must receive your reservation by Tuesday, March 9, 2010. Mail-in reservation forms should be sent to River Action, P.O. Box 963, Davenport, IA 52803.

Historic logging/lumber photos below courtesy of Putnam Museum and IMAX Theatre, Davenport, IA