1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Waterloo
WATERLOO, a city and the county-seat of Black Hawk county, Iowa, U.S.A., on the Cedar river, about 90 m. W. of Dubuque and about 275 m. W. of Chicago. Pop. (1890) 6674; (1900) 12,580, of whom 1334 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 26,693. It is served by the Illinois Central (which has large construction and repair shops here), the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, the Chicago Great Western, and the Waterloo, Cedar Falls & Northern (from Cedar Falls to Sumner) railways. The city has several public parks, a public library (1879) with two buildings, a Y.M.C.A. building, and a good public school system, including a manual training school. There is a Chautauqua park. The river here is 700 to 900 ft. wide; its clear water flows over a limestone bed through a rather evenly sloping valley in the middle of the city with enough fall to furnish valuable water power. The value of the factory product in 1905 was $4,693,888. The city is situated in a rich agricultural, dairying and poultry-raising region, and is an important shipping point. Waterloo was first settled about 1846, was laid out in 1854, first chartered as a city in 1868, and became a city of the first class in 1905.