Marquette (Iowa)
| Marquette | |||
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Location in Iowa
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| Basic data | |||
| Foundation : | 1874 | ||
| State : | United States | ||
| State : | Iowa | ||
| County : | Clayton County | ||
| Coordinates : | 43 ° 3 ′ N , 91 ° 11 ′ W | ||
| Time zone : | Central ( UTC − 6 / −5 ) | ||
| Residents : | 421 (status: 2000) | ||
| Population density : | 131.6 inhabitants per km 2 | ||
| Area : | 3.3 km 2 (approx. 1 mi 2 ) of which 3.2 km 2 (approx. 1 mi 2 ) are land |
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| Height : | 191 m | ||
| Postal code : | 52158 | ||
| Area code : | +1 563 | ||
| FIPS : | 19-49620 | ||
| GNIS ID : | 0458816 | ||
 Marquette station in 1885, in the background the open pontoon bridge |
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Marquette is a small town with a status of City on the west bank of the Mississippi River in Clayton County in the northeast of the US state Iowa . The place was originally founded as North McGregor . The settlement developed around the train station of McGregor , which is only two kilometers south, and developed into an important railway junction. In 1874 it was named after the French missionary Jacques Marquette and formally registered as an independent settlement.
Since there were as yet no bridges over the Mississippi, the wagons initially had to be brought across the river on a ferry , where they were put back on rails in the Prairie du Chien , Wisconsin opposite . In 1860 a pontoon bridge was built for rail traffic, which was the largest floating railway bridge in the world. In 1920 the place was the most important freight yard in Iowa. In 1932 a road bridge was added. The maintenance of the pontoons became too expensive in the middle of the 20th century, they were dismantled in 1961 and rail traffic over the river and passenger traffic were discontinued. The route along the west bank is still in operation for freight traffic. In 1975 a new road bridge opened over which the US Highway US 18 connects the city with Prairie du Chien.
Marquette lives from agriculture and tourism , the oldest state-licensed casino in Iowa is in a paddle steamer on the riverbank. The Marquette Depot Museum shows exhibits from the local railway history. Five kilometers north of the village is the Effigy Mounds National Monument , an archaeological site of artificial mounds called artificial mounds in the form of animals, which were built between the year 700 and about 1050 by a prehistoric Indian culture.
Web links
- Marquette and Mc Gregor story on the Chamber of Commerce website.