Ottumwa - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

OTTUMWA, a city and the county-seat of Wapello county, Iowa, U.S.A., on both sides of the Des Moines river, in the S.E. part of the state, about 85 m. S.E. of Des Moines. Pop. (1900) 18,197, of whom 1759 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 122,012. It is served by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Chicago, Milwaukee & Saint Paul, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, and the Wabash railways. The site on which it is built forms a succession of terraces receding farther and farther from the river. In the city are a Carnegie library, a city hospital and St Joseph's Academy. Ottumwa is the headquarters of the Ottumwa Division of the Southern Federal Judicial District of Iowa, and terms of United States District and Circuit courts are held there. The city is in one of the richest coal regions of the state, and ranks high as a manufacturing centre, pork-packing, and the manufacture of iron and steel, machinery and agricultural and mining implements being the leading industries. The value of the factory product in 1905 was $10,374,183, an increase of 19.5% since 1900. Ottumwa was first settled in 1843, was incorporated as a town in 1851, and first chartered as a city in 1857.