The New International Encyclopædia/Fort Madison

FORT MADISON. A city and the county-seat of Lee County, Iowa, 18 miles southwest of Burlington; on the Mississippi River, and on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy railroads (Map: Iowa, F 4). It is the seat of the State penitentiary, and has the Catermole Memorial Library, and several public parks. A fine railroad and wagon bridge crosses the river at this point. There are pork-packing houses, shops of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railroad, foundries and machine-shops, flour and saw mills, farm-implement works, wrapping-paper mills, car-wheel works, and manufactures of automobiles, buttons, boots and shoes, chairs, boxes, tools, etc. Fort Madison was settled in 1832, on the site of a fort dating from 1808, and was incorporated as a town in 1836. The government is administered by a mayor, elected every two years, and a unicameral council. Population, in 1890, 7901; in 1900, 9278.