Ottumwa

Seat of Wapello County, southern-central Iowa, USA, on the Des Moines River, 118 km/73 mi southeast of Des Moines; population (2000) 25,000. It is a market centre for the region's farms, with a major meatpacking facility. Industries include the manufacture of automotive products, electronic components, and agricultural and materials-handling equipment. Railway repair shops are also located here.

Ottumwa was laid out in 1843 near several Fox and Sac American Indian villages on a steep site climbing in and out of the river valley. It was originally called Appanoose Rapids, then Louisville, then Ottumwanoc, which was later shortened to Ottumwa. The first courthouse was a log cabin, then a brick structure was used until 1855. The next courthouse was used between 1855 and 1891 when it was replaced (between 1892 and 1894) by the present Richardson Romanesque building. This courthouse, topped by a statue of Wappello, the Fox chief for whom the county is named, is on the national register of historic places. Other buildings on the register include a funeral home of 1929, a 1915 bank, the 1901 public library and a 1912 federal building, now used as the city hall. In addition, there are four historic districts: Court Hill dating from 1865; Fifth Street Bluff, a prestigious residential district from the 1850s onwards; Vogel Place with its mixture of early 20th-century homes, and the Ottumwa Cemetery.