April 26 Illinois History Minute

It’s April 26th, the day that Quad Cities settler David Benton Sears was born in New York State in 1804. Sears is considered the founder of Moline, which is one of the Illinois Quad Cities. He came to the area in 1837, after the Sauk and Fox tribes had been forced out in the Black Hawk war.

Sears built a dam on the Mississippi River that constituted the settlement’s first major infrastructure. He opened many of Moline’s first businesses, from a flour mill to a steamboat port.

Catholic Archbishop of Chicago, John Cody, was made a cardinal of the Roman Catholic church by Pope Paul the Sixth on this day in 1967. As a cardinal, Cody would participate in the College of Cardinals selection of two popes, John Paul the first and John Paul the second, in 1978.