As part of our continued series of looking at Iowa river towns north up the Mississippi River from St. Louis at the end of the month this summer, we next head to Fort Madison, crossing over a massive bridge combining both rail and road.

Fort Madison’s street grid is laid out with numbered streets starting on the east side of town, but with lettered thoroughfares starting with A at the bluff line going south, so Avenue H runs along the river.

Avenue G is the heart of the business district and serves as the main street of Fort Madison, so to speak.

It is in a great state of preservation. Take the Lee County Savings Bank below, which was constructed in 1893, a stout example of the Romanesque Revival in the financial institution category of buildings.

The city’s history dates back to the eponymous military installation, Fort Madison, built in 1808, and was actually the site of a battle during the Black Hawk War. The town seems to have begun as a real estate venture in 1832, but the history as a fortification lives on as a partial reconstruction of the fort lies in downtown near the river.

As is common in Iowa, there are a plethora of Italianate storefronts, showing the rapid rise of these towns in the economic boom after the Civil War.

But of course the moving picture was not invented until the Twentieth Century, so like many of a town in America, there is a movie theater in a later style, as we can see below in the Fox Theater.

Originally opened in 1919 as the Strand, it was renovated in the modern style in 1951 and renamed the Fox. It’s closed a couple of times and reopened over the years.

Pilot Grove Bank has moved in and like many parts of America, there has been a consolidation of financial institutions.

We turned off Avenue G and headed up 9th Street to look at some residential neighborhoods next.

But check out this balcony extending out the side of this building.