1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ottawa (Kansas)

OTTAWA, a city and the county-seat of Franklin county, eastern Kansas, United States, situated on the Osage (Marais des Cygnes) river, about 58 m. (by rail) S.W. of Kansas City. Pop. (1900) 6934, of whom 333 were foreign born; (1905, state census) 7727. It is served by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé (which has large repair shops here) and the Missouri Pacific railways. There is a Carnegie library, and Forest Park, within the city limits, is a popular meeting place of conventions and summer gatherings, including the annual Ottawa Chautauqua Assembly. Ottawa University (Baptist) was established here in 1865, as the outgrowth of Roger Williams University, which had been chartered in 1860 for the education of Indians on the Ottawa Reservation, and had received a grant of 20,000 acres from the Federal government in 1862. The university comprises an academy, a college, a school of fine arts and a commercial college, and in 1909 had 406 students. Ottawa has an important trade in grain and live-stock; soft coal and natural gas are found in the vicinity; the manufactures include flour, wind-mills, wire-fences, furniture, bricks, brooms and foundry products. Ottawa was settled in 1854, and was first chartered as a city in 1866.