1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Austin (Minnesota)

AUSTIN, a city and the county-seat of Mower county, Minnesota, U.S.A., on the Red Cedar river and Turtle creek, (by rail) 105 m. S. of Minneapolis and 100 m. from St Paul. Pop. (1900) 5474; (1905, state census) 6489 (913 foreign-born); (1910, U.S. census) 6960. It is served by the Chicago Great Western and the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul railways. Austin is the seat of the Southern Minnesota Normal College and Austin School of Commerce (1896), and has a Carnegie library, court house and city hall. It is a market for livestock, and for dairy and farm products, and has slaughtering and packing establishments, flour mills, creameries and cheese factories, canning and preserving factories, carriage works, a flax fibre mill and grain elevators. Brick, tile, sewer-pipe, and hydraulic cement are manufactured, and there are railway repair shops. A valuable water-power is utilized for manufacturing purposes. Fresh-water pearls of considerable value and beauty are found in the Red Cedar river. The city owns and operates its own water-supply system and electric-lighting plant. Austin was settled in 1855, was incorporated as a village in 1868, and was chartered as a city in 1873.