Our History
In December of 1939 Dr G. W. Lorfeld and a some area businessmen formed Davenport Bowlers Inc. The following August of 1940 Bowlmor Lanes held its Grand opening. It was billed as Iowa's Bowling Palace with 20 Air Conditioned Lanes and was the largest Bowling Alley between Chicago and Denver. Many people in 1940 thought the concept of such a large bowling alley would not succeed because the Davenport Trolly stopped at Locust & Brady streets and Bowlmor was to far out in the country.
Dr Lorfelds son Chuck Lorfeld grew up around the bowling business and and eventually and took over managing Bowlmor in 1956 and continued to manage for almost 40 years until 1996. His wife Pat Lorfeld helped out the entire time and eventually took over as comptroller in the early 1980's and is still active today.
Their sons Trent and Lance Lorfeld started young in the bowling business and by the age of 14 were both employed at Bowlmor. In the early 90's Lance Lorfed graduated from Plamer College and move to Tacoma Washington and now owns a Bowling Center called Tower Lanes and is still involved in decision making for Bowlmor. Trent has continued to work at Bowlmor every year since 1974 and is now celebrating his 40th year in the bowling business. His wife Sue Lorfeld has been involved in daily operations for the past few years and daughter Allie Lorfeld has been in the Bowlmor Youth Bowling Program since the age of 5 and continues in the family bowling tradition.
Before the advent of automatic pinspoters the pins were set by hand, we since have replaced the bowling machines 3 times as well as being on our third set of lanes. We had one of the first Youth bowling programs in the Midwest established in 1954. Bowlmor is and second oldest Bowling Center in Iowa and celebrated its 75th year of operation in August of 2015. We are extremely excited to host our 1st State Youth Bowling Tournament.
Make sure to visit our other Center website Big River Bowling!
Bowlmor (because we think people should bowl more, but the cleaver folks in 1940 didn’t want to call it Bowlmore Lanes) attracts bowlers from all around the Midwest and is a great place for leagues and for parties. The attraction to bowl in a business that has been open since 1940 makes it a bowler tourist attraction.
We serve families in the Iowa Quad Cities in the Scott County area (including Bettendorf, Blue Grass, Buffalo, Davenport, Dixon, Donahue, Durant, Eldridge, Le Claire, Long Grove, Maysville, McCausland, New Liberty, Plainview, Pleasant Valley, Princeton, Riverdale, Stockton, and Walcott). As an established institution in the Quad City area, we of course draw many bowling fans from Illinois, mostly from Rock Island County (including Andalusia, Buffalo Prairie, Campbell's Island, Carbon Cliff, Coal Valley, Cordova, East Moline, Edgington, Hampton, Hillsdale, Illinois City, Milan, Moline, Oak Grove, Port Byron, Rapid City, Reynolds, Rock Island, and Silvis).