June 2012

Jipp Home and Grocery Restoration  

The Jipp grocery is one of Davenport’s last remaining examples of a store and attached home from the 1860s. In the 1983 historical survey putting the Hamburg Historical District on the National Register of Historic Places, it was described as contributing to the historic significance of the district and unique for its late 19^th century commercial wing. We now know it is much more than that.

 The history of Davenport, and its success as a 19th century commercial center, is wedded to the history of its German-speaking immigrants. Christian Jipp, an immigrant from the Schleswig-Holstein, worked as a clerk at various retail shops along the Mississippi riverfront from 1860 to 1867.  In 1868 he built the grocery and lived in the back of the store with his wife Fanny and their 3 children, Ella, Rhoda and Meta for 10 years until he could afford to build the attached house.

This was one of the first retail businesses to progress up the hill from the riverfront on the west side and a symbol of the growing Davenport of the 1860s (suburban sprawl??).

The store was sold to Kroeger and Koch in 1906 and remained a grocery until 1958 when it became a laundromat. Again reflecting the changing of the neighborhood. The laundromat closed in the early 1980s and has been abandoned ever since. The house remained the home of Rhoda Jipp until she died in 1945 and was also abandoned along with the closing of the laundromat.

We plan to restore the home and store to its original appearance and use it for our not for profit   

Architectural Rescue Shop

This building, which has been abandoned and boarded up for over 20 years, will then become one more symbol of the revitalization of our neighborhood.

Gateway Redevelopment Group, Davenport, Iowa