About the Karpeles Museum- Rock Island, Illinois

KMuseumRKi@aol.com

Rock Island is part of the Quad Cities which includes Davenport, Iowa and Moline, Illinois. Quad Cities is about the size of Miami but is not well known as none of the cities alone is over 100,000 in population.

The Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum is located at 700 22nd Street, Rock Island, Illinois. It was formerly a Christian Science church, designed by architect William C. Jones of Chicago in the Palladian style, it was built between 1914-1915. Its exterior walls are of brick covered by Bedford limestone. Its superimposed front portico is supported by six 2 story columns with egg-and-dart capitals. Its dome actually consists of 2 domes: an outer dome and an inner dome which are separated by a space for lighting fixtures and maintenance. The inner dome consists of some 8,000 colored fish scale glass panes on a wooden support structure. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 14, 1998. .