Venue: The Col Ballroom
Town: Iowa, US

The Col Ballroom is a historic building located in the West End of Davenport, Iowa, United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and on the Davenport Register of Historic Properties as the Saengerfest Halle. Davenport's strong music tradition is due in large part to the influx of German immigrants into the city starting in the late 1840s. They founded numerous music groups in the city before 1900. The groups with longer staying power included: the Liedertafel (founded in 1848), Maennerchor (1851), Strasser's German Union Brass Band (1856), Germania Band (1883), and three other groups founded in the 1850s included Gesang Chor Der Turngemeinde, Deutscher Saengerbund, and Onretti Verein. There were also short-lived music organizations: Germania Saengerchor, Gesang Verein Teutonia, Eintracht Glee Club, Claus Groth Singing Society, Thalia Verein, Harrigaria Maennerchor, and the Davenport Saengerbund. In 1858 the city hosted the third annual Saengerfest, or singer's festival, which drew people from throughout the Mississippi River Valley. The largest music event in Davenport's history took place in 1898 when it hosted the 18th annual Saengerfest. It brought together ten local German singing groups as the United Singers of Davenport. Together they organized and hosted the event. The festival included 1,200 singers from Davenport, Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Elgin, Illinois, Elkader, Iowa, La Crosse, Wisconsin, Manning, Iowa, Moline, Illinois, Peoria, Illinois, Rock Island, Illinois and St. Louis, Missouri. The event drew German-Americans from throughout the Midwest, and Western Union added extra German operators so as to get news of the festival out over the wires. An estimated 100,000 people attended the four-day event. The festival ended with an outdoor concert at Schuetzen Park that was attended by 12,000 people. Preparations for the festival included building a 4,000-seat auditorium for the event. A holding company built the wood structure for $4