1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Aurora (Illinois)

AURORA, a city of Kane county, Illinois, U.S.A., in the N.E. part of the state, on the Fox river, about 37 m. W. of Chicago. Pop. (1890) 19,688; (1900) 24,147, of whom 5075 were foreign-born; (1910) 29,807. Aurora is served by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Chicago & North-Western, the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern, and the Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota railways, and is connected with Chicago by an electric line. The city has a soldiers’ memorial hall, erected by popular subscription, and a Carnegie library. Aurora is an important manufacturing centre; among its manufactures are railway cars—the shops of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy railway being here—flour and cotton, carriages, hardware specialties, corsets, suspenders, stoves and silver-plate. In 1905 the city’s factory products were valued at $7,329,028, an increase of 30% in 5 years. The municipality owns and operates the water-works and electric-lighting plants. The first settlement in the vicinity of Aurora was made in 1834. In 1845 the village of East Aurora was incorporated, and West Aurora was incorporated nine years later. In 1853 the two villages were united under a city charter, which was superseded by a revised charter in 1887.