CEDAR RAPIDS 



1245 



CELEBES 



of Tyre furnished wood from the cedars of 

 Lebanon. The gigantic task was done by 80,000 

 hewers and must have taken a very long time. 

 The most celebrated group of cedars of Leba- 



CEDAR OF LEBANON 



One of the two specimens in California, be- 

 lieved to have been standing fully three thousand 

 years at the date of Christ's birth. 



non was located not far from the village of 

 Tripoli until 1916, when the German army de- 

 stroyed them. The circumference of the largest 

 varied from about eighteen to forty-seven feet. 

 Two fine specimens of the cedar of Lebanon 

 are located in Santa Rosa, Cal.; one of these, 

 illustrated herewith in a drawing from a photo- 

 graph, is believed by David Starr Jordan to 

 be close to 5,000 years old. 



CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA, a manufacturing 

 city and a distributing point of importance in 

 the state. It is situated in Linn County, in 

 the eastern part of the state, about midway 

 between the northern and southern boundary 

 lines. Cedar River divides the city into two 

 sections, known as the East Side and the 

 West Side. Dubuque is seventy-nine miles 

 northeast, Chicago is 219 miles east and north, 

 and Saint Paul is 250 miles northwest. Saint 

 Louis, Kansas City, Omaha and Saint Paul 

 are about equally distant from Cedar Rapids. 

 Four large railway systems serve the city 

 the Chicago & North Western; Chicago, Mil- 

 waukee & Saint Paul; Chicago, Rock Island & 

 Pacific, and the Illinois Central; electric lines 

 extend to Iowa City and Lisbon. The first 

 settlement was made in 1845, and named for 

 the rapids in the river. The city was incorpo- 



rated in 1856; it adopted the commission form 

 of government in 1908. The population in- 

 creased from 32^11 in 1910 to 35358 in 1914; 

 the state census of 1915 claimed 40,667. The 

 area exceeds twelve square miles. 



Parks and Boulevards. Cedar Rapids is a 

 blend of hill, dale and winding river, with all 

 the aspects of a modern, progressive city. The 

 two sections of the town are united by nine 

 concrete bridges, and their limits enclose miles 

 of well-made streets, many beautiful churches, 

 numerous handsome residences, public play- 

 grounds and parks; the largest and most at- 

 tractive of the latter is Beaver Park (seventy 

 acres) with its zoo; Ellis, Daniels, Riverside 

 and Sinclair parks are all of considerable size, 

 and several districts have been landscaped for 

 residential parks. 



Buildings and Institutions. All the city 

 government buildings are located on an island 

 in Cedar River, in the heart of the city. 

 Among the noteworthy architectural features 

 are the Cedar Rapids high school, the $100,000 

 public library, the American Trust building, 

 and the Westminster Presbyterian, Saint Paul's 

 Methodist and Immaculate Conception (Ro- 

 man Catholic) churches. In addition to its 

 public library and schools, it has Coe College 

 (Presbyterian), founded in 1881, and a Ma- 

 sonic library, the only exclusively Masonic 

 library in the United States. There are Y. M. 

 C. A. and Y. W. C. A. buildings, Knights of 

 Pythias and Elks homes and homes for friend- 

 less children and aged people. The interna- 

 tional headquarters of the Order of Railway 

 Conductors of America is also located here. 



Commerce and Industry. Owing to its loca- 

 tion in a rich agricultural district, Cedar Rapids 

 is a trade center of importance and has a 

 large number of wholesale jobbing and com- 

 mission houses. The rapids in the river furnish 

 abundant power, but electric power is used by 

 the greater number of the city's 190 factories; 

 the value of their output in 1915 was estimated 

 at $46,100,000. So extensive is the product 

 of cereals that the city is locally called The 

 Cereal City; two of its cereal mills are among 

 the largest in the United States. It also claims 

 to have the largest independent starch works 

 and independent meat-packing plant in the 

 Union. Pumps, windmills, iron pipe and wire 

 fence are also important manufactures. Rail- 

 road shops give employment to hundreds of 

 men. J-W. 



CELEBES, sel'ebeez, one of the most im- 

 portant of the Dutch East India Islands, ait- 



