1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mount Vernon (Iowa)

MOUNT VERNON, a town of Linn county, Iowa, U.S.A., 16 m. E. of Cedar Rapids. Pop. (1900), 1629; (1910, U S, census), 1532. Mount Vernon is served by the Chicago & North Western railway. It is the seat of Cornell College (Methodist Episcopal; coeducational), which was opened as the Iowa Conference Seminary in 1853, and was chartered in 1857 under its present name, adopted in honour of William W. Cornell (1823–1870), an iron manufacturer of New York City and a benefactor of the institution. Cornell College includes a collegiate department, an academy, a conservatory of music, a school of art, a school of oratory and a summer school; in 1907–1908 it had 40 instructors and 755 students. Mount Vernon was settled in 1842, was laid out in 1847, and was incorporated as a town in 1869.