ROCKFORD  , a

city and the county seat of Winnebago county, Illinois, U.S.A., on the Rock river, in the northern part of the state, about 85 m . N.W. of Chicago . Pop . (189o) 23,584; (1900) 31,051, of whom 9337 were foreign-born (6690 Swedes); (1910 census) 45,401 . Area, 8.91 sq. m . It is served by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Chicago & North-Western, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul, the Chicago, Milwaukee & Gary (" Rockford Route ") and the Illinois Central railways, and is connected by interurban electric railway with Chicago and Freeport, Illinois, and Janesville, Wisconsin . The city has a Memorial Hall, erected in honour of the soldiers and sailors of Winnebago county, and in charge of the Grand Army of the Republic; a soldiers' memorial fountain; a Carnegie library, containing 51,340 volumes in 1909; and the Velie Museum of natural history . Rockford College (non-sectarian), for the higher education of women, is ranked by the United States Commissioner of Education as one of fifteen women's colleges of the highest grade in the country; it was opened in 1849 as Rockford Seminary, and was named Rockford College in 1892 . In 1908—9 it had 196 students . Rockford is the see of a Roman Catholic bishop . In and near the city there are two hospitals and three sanatoriums . Manufacturing is facilitated by good water-power, supplied by a dam across the Rock river about 800 ft. long, constructed in 1844 .

Among the manufactures are

furniture, hosiery and knit goods, agricultural implements, foundry and machine-shop products, saddlery and harness, &c . The total value of all factory products in 1905 was $15,276,129 (38.6% more than in 1900) . The municipality owns andoperates its waterworks; the water supply is obtained from artesian wells . Rockford was first settled in 1834, and was chartered as a city in 1852 . More than one-fourth of its area has been annexed to the city since 1889 .