HUTCHINSON

hutchinson, a city and the county-seat of reno county, kansas, u.s.a., in the broad bottom-land on the n. side of the arkansas river. pop. (1900) 9379, of whom 414 were foreign-born and 442 negroes; (1910 census) 16,364. it is served by the atchison, topeka & santa fe, the missouri pacific and the chicago, rock island & pacific railways. the principal public buildings are the federal building and the county court house. the city has a public library, and an industrial reformatory is maintained here by the state. hutchinson is situated in a stock-raising, fruit-growing and farming region (the principal products of which are wheat, indian corn and fodder), with which it has a considerable wholesale trade. an enormous deposit of rock salt underlies the city and its vicinity, and hutchinson's principal industry is the manufacture (by the open-pan and grainer processes) and the shipping of salt; the city has one of the largest salt plants in the world. among the other manufactures are flour, creamery products, soda-ash, straw-board, planing-mill products and packed meats. natural gas is largely used as a factory fuel. the city's factory product was valued at $2,031,048 in 1905, an increase of 31.8% since 1900. hutchinson was chartered as a city in 1871.