La Salle

La Salle, a city of La Salle county, Illinois, U.S.A., on the Illinois river, near the head of navigation, 99 m. S.W. of Chicago. Pop. (1900) 10,446, of whom 3471 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 11,537. The city is served by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, and the Illinois Central railways, and by the Illinois & Michigan Canal, of which La Salle is the western terminus. The city has a public library. The principal industries are the smelting of zinc and the manufacture of cement, rolled zinc, bricks, sulphuric acid and clocks; in 1905 the city’s factory products were valued at $3,158,173. In the vicinity large quantities of coal are mined, for which the city is an important shipping point. The municipality owns and operates the waterworks and the electric lighting plant. The first settlement was made here in 1830; and the place which was named in honour of the explorer, René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, was chartered as a city in 1852 and rechartered in 1876.