WABASH  , a

city and the county-seat of Wabash county, Indiana, U.S.A., about 42 M . S.W. of Fort Wayne . Pop . (1890) 5105, (1900) 8618, of whom 498 were foreign-born and 134 negroes; (19'o U.S. census) 8687 . It is served by the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis railway (which has extensive shops here), by the Wabash railway, and by interurban electric lines . It has a public library, a Memorial Hall (1897), erected to the memory of Federal soldiers in the Civil War and occupied by the local " camp " of the Grand Army of the Republic, a Masonic temple, a county hospital and two parks . The city is in a fertile agricultural region, and has a considerable trade in grain and produce . Among its manufactures are furniture, agricultural implements and foundry and machine-shop products . In 1905 the factory products were valued at $2,202,932 (31.2 % more than in 1900) . Wabash was settled about 1834, incorporated as a village in 1854, and first chartered as a city in 1866 . It was one of the first cities in the world to be lighted with electricity, a lighting plant being established in February 1880 .