The outstanding QC artist Atlanta Dawn has made history in downtown East Moline.
She recently completed a striking black-and-white mural for the side of Hey Bryan’s bar and pool hall, facing its outdoor patio, at 1140 15th Ave., East Moline.
The new 700-square-foot mural (which incorporates key elements of downtown’s history) is headed by the phrase “East Moline Makes Good Since 1903. That (“East Moline Makes Good”) was a 1912 slogan for the city, originated by the Commercial Club, and 1903 is the year East Moline was incorporated as a village — and by coincidence, the year the predecessor to Hey Bryan’s (long known as Clauw’s Tavern) opened with the first city liquor license.
Settled in 1895, the town was originally called Port Byron Junction. It developed as a center of manufacture of farm implements, particularly following the establishment of the East Moline Land Company (1896), said Connie Cornmesser, co-owner of Hey Bryan’s. It was incorporated as a village in 1903 and renamed East Moline. The village of East Moline was incorporated as a city in April of 1907.
The slogan reflected the city’s manufacturing muscle and its growth in population, Dawn said Friday.
Cornmesser (with her husband Bruce) has run the bar for 21 years, taking it over from its namesake, former owner Bryan Barton. When patrons came into the bar, they always said, “Hey Bryan!”
She had seen Dawn’s work around the area, and first reached out about a year ago about a mural along with building renovations, and then the popular muralist was too busy. Dawn found time in the spring, and started work May 30. She worked on it straight through (without doing other murals at the same time), finishing June 16.
“Atlanta’s done numerous different murals throughout the Quad-City area; I’ve seen her work for years, it’s gorgeous,” Cornmesser said Friday. “I knew when we got to this point that she’d give us what we wanted and she definitely has. I thought our working relationship would be a good mix and it definitely was.”
It previously was a blank brick wall, starting at 15 feet going up to the 30-foot height of the building, and the mural dimensions are about 14 feet tall and 52 feet wide.
Dawn painted from a boom lift (rented by Altorfer Cat in Bettendorf), with the movable arm to get over the pavilion, that’s being renovated now on the patio.
Cornmesser was impressed by Dawn’s huge, colorful Palace Tavern mural, at 701 15th Ave., East Moline. That one is 115 feet long and 11.5 feet tall, completed last summer for their new patio that opened in June 2022.
“To watch her do this was amazing,” Cornmesser said of Hey Bryan’s. The tavern building started construction in 1897 and opened in 1903.
“This area was Belgian,” she said, noting the building site originally housed pigeon coops, and pigeon racing was popular.
“To this day, they still have an East Moline Facebook page of pigeon racing, which is very popular,” Cornmesser said. “With that being part of the heritage of the Belgian community, I wanted to take what was part of the heritage of the building and implement it back, and basically thank them for coming here and doing what they did.”
The mural depicts pigeons, the popular sport of rolle bolle (also part of the Belgian community), the former trolley bridge to Campbell’s Island and a Model A Velie car from the late 1920s.
Hey Bryan’s used to host a rolle bolle court, where today there’s a sand volleyball area and grassy area with picnic benches. Two former neighboring buildings were torn down after a fire in the early 1990s, Cornmesser said.
They’ve had the outdoor patio for about 16 years and are currently in the process of renovation, with a new roof and fence for the pavilion. There are also changes on the building exterior, with the old brick on the lower level removed and replaced with rust-colored metal.
Cornmesser wants unify its look similar to the Rust Belt and Bend area.
The Velie Model A was produced at where the Rust Belt is now (533 12th Ave.) and motors were put in at the end of 15th Avenue, after the cars were built.
“Keeping history together – the cars were sold across the street,” Cornmesser said. “East Moline used to be booming, I mean major booming.”
Dawn (who lives in Rapids City and is pregnant with her second child) worked on the mural seven days a week, starting at 7 a.m. Her nearly two-year-old daughter Violet is in day care, and she’s due to have another baby this Halloween.
Reaching artistic heights
“We had that boom lift, so we had to hurry up and get it done,” she said. “The lift was the most challenging, getting over this pavilion. Feeling safe, going up this high. This is the highest painting I’ve ever done.”
“I had to get over my fear of heights really quickly,” Dawn said. She used a brick sealer that helped her to paint on the wall.
The Palace project was stretched out longer (over about four months), since she worked on other murals during that big work. “I wanted to get this knocked out and done,” Dawn said of Hey Bryan’s. “It’s a little wiser when you’re working on murals, to focus all your energy on one and get it done.”
Cornmesser wanted the black-and-white style to stand out from Dawn’s other bright murals. “I love the mural that’s down at the Palace, but we’re at the opposite end. I wanted us to be a little different, to stand out and be individual. I am so happy that we made that choice, took the color out of it. I love it.”
“I thought the slogan was part of why East Moline is what it is,” she said. “That’s what most people ask about, is the slogan. It’s a conversation piece.”
“It helps you dive into the history,” Dawn said. She included the city ZIP code (61244) on the car license plate.
A talking piece
The mural already has helped the business, Cornmesser said. “It’s definitely been a talking piece; we’ve had people come every day, saying ‘I heard about this,’ or they see it coming down the road.
“My goal is, I want people down here. I want people to see what we’re doing,” she said. They’re planning on putting lights on the patio, a new vertical “Hey Bryan’s” sign down the left side of the mural and light the mural itself, to be done in August.
“With the improvements that are happening, the streetscaping, I really think East Moline is the place to come back to,” Cornmesser said. “East Moline right now is the biggest growth industry in the Quad-City area. In two or three years, we’re not gonna have to ask people to keep coming. They’re gonna come.
The development at The Bend has been positive for her bar.
“When people stay at the Hyatt, and say, “We’d like to go to one of the local places after a concert, they send them down here,” Cornmesser said, noting that includes the Palace and Whiskey Stop.
“We appreciate it tremendously and we also in turn try to give back to them,” she said.
The mural is exactly what she hoped for. “It makes you cry. It’s something to be proud of.”
Renovations done by August
Hey Bryan’s hopes to have all its improvements (including a new lit door which goes out to the patio) done by Freedom Fest, the third weekend of August.
They already replaced unattractive gray siding around the door, which is now a darker gray and was in place before the new mural.
“The black and white all tied in together, with the industrial look and feel,” Dawn said.
The 30-year-old artist also did murals inside the Rust Belt building, including an Iron & Grain Coffee logo and paintings inside the Iron & Grain boutique.
Dawn plans to repaint the East Moline Veterans Memorial Park mural, to replace that within two months, with an American pride theme.
“This was my dad’s stomping grounds when I was a kid,” she said, noting she graduated from Moline High. Cornmesser is an East Moline native and feels special pride with the new mural.
“Seeing the growth and restructuring of East Moline has become a passion of mine,” she said. “I grew up as a baby in the upstairs of the building that had burnt down in the early 1990s. This building was the second to the right of Hey Bryan’s.”
“It’s a really cool feeling, growing up in the area and knowing that the mural will be here for years to come,” Dawn said.
She worked up shortly before Violet was born in early August 2021. Dawn’s next major project is a huge mural along the 5th Street wall in downtown Davenport, on the railroad bridge, and a new city mural on Bettendorf’s 18th Street (to replace an old one on a retaining wall), up the street from K & K Hardware (starting Monday).
She also will work on overseeing new murals for Alternating Currents in downtown Davenport (April 17-20), on the back of the building at 221 E. 2nd St.
Hey Bryan’s will celebrate its third Summer Jam live music event on Saturday, Aug. 19, in coordination with Freedom Fest and a car show, where 15th Avenue is blocked off west to 7th Street.
To see more of Dawn’s work, visit her website HERE.
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