B.J. Palmer House

The B.J. Palmer House, is located on the Brady Street Hill in Davenport, Iowa, United States. It is on the campus of Palmer College of Chiropractic and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1984.^[1]

B.J. Palmer

Bartlett Joshua Palmer (1882–1961) was the son of Daniel David Palmer who established the practice of chiropractic. B.J. Palmer convinced his father to establish a school of chiropractic in Davenport. In the first decade of the 20th century B.J. Palmer purchased the mansions built by J.C. Duncan W.D. Petersen and Thomas Barron on the top of Brady Street for the school.^[2] He served the college as its president and is credited with the development of chiropractic. In 1922 he bought a small radio station in Rock Island, Illinois and moved it to a studio near the school’s campus and it became WOC. It was the second commercial radio station in the United States and the first west of the Mississippi River.^[3]

Architecture

The Palmer Mansion was built in the Second Empire style in 1874 by Louis C. Dessaint.^[1] Palmer acquired the property in 1915. In 1924 he started to build a garden along the north side of the house that he called A Little Bit O’ Heaven. It was largely a collection of artwork and artifacts that Palmer and his wife, Mabel, collected on their trips to Asia and Europe. Part of the collection was also kept in the house. The site contained what Palmer claimed was the smallest chapel in the world, it was eight feet square, and thousands of people wed there.^[4] For a small fee the public was allowed to visit the site. It was one of the most popular attractions in Davenport.^[4] After Palmer’s death in 1961 A Little Bit O’ Heaven started to decline and it was closed to the public in 1981. It was dismantled in 1983 and some of the pieces were relocated to the Putnam Museum in Davenport. The courtyard became a patio for students. The house, partially obscured by an addition to the front, remains a part of Palmer College today.

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