1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Wabash

WABASH, a city and the county-seat of Wabash county, Indiana, U.S.A., about 42 m. S.W. of Fort Wayne. Pop. (1890) 5105, (1900) 8618, of whom 498 were foreign-born and 134 negroes; (1910 U.S. census) 8687. It is served by the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis railway (which has extensive shops here), by the Wabash railway, and by interurban electric lines. It has a public library, a Memorial Hall (1897), erected to the memory of Federal soldiers in the Civil War and occupied by the local “camp” of the Grand Army of the Republic, a Masonic temple, a county hospital and two parks. The city is in a fertile agricultural region, and has a considerable trade in grain and produce. Among its manufactures are furniture, agricultural implements and foundry and machine-shop products. In 1905 the factory products were valued at $2,202,932 (31.2% more than in 1900). Wabash was settled about 1834, incorporated as a village in 1854, and first chartered as a city in 1866. It was one of the first cities in the world to be lighted with electricity, a lighting plant being established in February 1880.