Fort Madison

Fort Madison, a city and the county-seat of Lee county, Iowa, U.S.A., on the Mississippi river, in the S.E. corner of the state, and about 20 m. S.W. of Burlington. Pop. (1890) 7901; (1900) 9278, of whom 1025 were foreign-born; (1905) 8767; (1910) 8900. Fort Madison is served by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé (which has repair shops here) and the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy railways. The city has various manufactures, including canned goods, chairs, paper and farm implements; the value of its factory product in 1905 was $2,378,892, an increase of 50.8% over that of 1900. Fort Madison is the seat of one of Iowa’s penitentiaries. A stockade fort was erected on the site of the city in 1808, but was burned in 1813. Permanently settled in 1833, Fort Madison was laid out as a town in 1836, and was chartered as a city in 1839.