1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sioux City

SIOUX CITY, a city and the county-seat of Woodbury county, Iowa, U.S.A., at the confluence of the Big Sioux with the Missouri river, about 156 m. N.W. of Des Moines. Pop. (1890) 37,806; (1900) 33,111, of whom 6592 were foreign-born (including 1460 Swedish, 1176 German and 1054 Norwegian); (1910, census) 47,828. It is served by the Chicago, Milwaukee & Saint Paul, the Chicago & North-Western, the Chicago, Saint Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Illinois Central, and the Great Northern railways. The bluffs approach the Missouri more closely at this point than elsewhere in the state, so that little more than manufacturing establishments and business blocks are built on the bottom lands, and the residences are spread over the slope and summit of the bluffs. The city has a public library (housed in the city hall) and eight parks (including Riverside on the Big Sioux), with a total area of more than 500 acres. Among the principal buildings are the city hall, the post office, the Young Men's Christian Association building, and the High School. There are several boat clubs and a country and golf club. Two miles S. of the city is a monument to Sergeant Charles Floyd of the Lewis and Clark expedition, who died here in 1804; and 1 m. W. of the city is the grave of War Eagle, a Sioux chief. Among the educational institutions are Morningside College (Methodist Episcopal, 1894), 3 m. from the business centre of the city, which had in 1908-1909 34 instructors and 672 students; the Sioux City College of Medicine (1889), and St Mary's School. The principal hospitals are the Samaritan, the St Joseph's Mercy, and the German Lutheran. Sioux City is the see of a Roman Catholic bishop. The Chicago, Milwaukee & Saint Paul, the Great Northern, and the Chicago, Saint Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha have shops here; meat packing is an important industry, and the city has large stock yards. As a manufacturing centre, it ranked first in 1900 and third in 1905 among the cities of the state; the value of its factory product in 1905 was $14,760,751. Its manufactures include slaughtering and meat-packing products, cars and car repairing, linseed oil, bricks and tiles (made from excellent clay found in and near the city). The city does a large wholesale and distributing business. Sioux City was settled about 1850, was platted in 1854, becoming the headquarters of a United States Land Office, was incorporated in 1856, and was chartered as a city in 1857. It was the starting-point of various expeditions sent against the Sioux Indians of the Black Hills.