Ottawa, Illinois

Ottawa is a city located at the confluence of the Illinois River and Fox River in LaSalle County, Illinois, USA. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 18,307. It is the county seat of LaSalle County and it is part of the Ottawa-Streator Micropolitan Statistical Area, which was the 259th-most populous area in the United States in 2007.

History
Ottawa was the site of the first of the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. During the Ottawa debate Stephen A. Douglas, leader of the Democratic Party, openly accused Abraham Lincoln of forming a secret bipartisan group of Congressmen to bring about the abolition of slavery.

The John Hossack House was a "station" on the Underground Railroad; Ottawa being a major stop, because of its rail, road and river transportation. Citizens in the city were active within the abolitionist movement. Ottawa was the site of a famous 1859 abduction of a runaway slave named Jim Gray, from a courthouse by prominent civic leaders of the time. Three of the civic leaders, John Hossack, Dr. Joseph Stout and James Stout, later stood trial in Chicago for violating the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.

Ottawa was also important in the development of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, which terminates in LaSalle, Illinois, 12 miles to the west. The canal linked the Mississippi River to Chicago and Lake Michigan, in the 19th century.

On February 8, 1910, William Dickson Boyce, then a resident of Ottawa, incorporated the Boy Scouts of America. Five years later, also in Ottawa, Boyce incorporated the Lone Scouts of America. Boyce is buried in Ottawa Avenue Cemetery. The Ottawa Scouting Museum, on Canal Street, opened to the public on December 6, 1997. The museum features the history of Boy Scouting, Girl Scouting and Camp Fire.

In 1922 The Radium Dial Company (RDC) moved from Peru, Illinois to a former high school building in Ottawa. The company employed hundreds of young women who painted watch dials using a paint called "Luna" for watch maker Westclox. RDC went out of business in 1936, two years after the company's president, Joseph Kelly Sr., left to start a competing company, Luminous Processes Inc., a few blocks away.

Industry
Because of numerous silica sand deposits (Ottawa sand was on board the ill-fated Columbia space shuttle for experimental purposes) Ottawa has been a major sand and glass center for more than 100 years. One of its largest employers is Pilkington Glass works, a successor to LOF (Libbey Owens Ford). Formerly concentrated in automotive glass, the plant now manufactures specialty glass and underwent a $50 million renovation in 2006. Ottawa sand continues to be extracted from several quarries in the area, and is recognized in glass-making and abrasives for its uniform granularity and characteristics.

Sabic recently purchased GE Plastics, a successor to Borg Warner automotive glass manufacture, operates a large plastics facility in Ottawa, and is a major employer.

Demographics
As of the 2000 census, there were 18,307 people, 7,510 households and 4,889 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,497.9 people per square mile (964.3/km²). There were 8,030 housing units, at an average density of 1,095.6 per square mile (423.0/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 95.26% White, 1.37% African American, 0.15% Native American, 0.83% Asian, 0.06% Pacific Islander, 0.93% from other races and 1.39% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 5.21% of the population.

There were 7,510 households out of which 31.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 49.4% were married couples living together, 11.7% had a female householder with no husband present and 34.9% were non-families. 30.8% of all households were made up of individuals and 14.2% had someone living alone, who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.38 and the average family size was 2.98.

In the city, the population was spread out with 24.9% under the age of 18, 8.1% from 18 to 24, 28.2% from 25 to 44, 20.8% from 45 to 64 and 17.9% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38 years. For every 100 females, there were 91.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 87.3 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $36,513 and the median income for a family was $44,435. Males had a median income of $41,943 versus $22,041 for females. The per capita income for the city was $19,426. About 9.8% of families and 11.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 16.8% of those under age 18 and 7.0% of those age 65 or over.

Tourism
Ottawa has many historic homes and registered historic landmarks. Recent additions to Ottawa have included renovations to its historic mansion, Reddick Mansion, and artistic murals throughout the central business district. Ottawa is known as the scenic gateway to Starved Rock State Park, the most popular state park in Illinois, with some 2 million visitors per year. The Fox River, which flows through communities like Elgin and Aurora empties into the Illinois in downtown Ottawa. Ottawa is also home to one of the largest skydiving operations in the country, Skydive Chicago.

Ottawa Scouting Museum honors Ottawa resident, William D. Boyce, the founder of the Boy Scouts of America. Once an old Norwegian Lutheran Church, Norsk Museum, is located 9 miles northeast of Ottawa, on highway 71. The Museum is dedicated to the Scandinavian settlers who founded the area around neighboring Norway, Illinois in the 1800s.

Newspapers

 * Ottawa is served by two local newspapers. The older of the two The Times formed in 2005, when the Streator Times-Press merged with The Daily Times, based in Ottawa. The second is a weekly newspaper called "Ottawa Delivered"
 * Ottawa is also served by the NewsTribune of La Salle, IL.

Radium City Documentary
In 1986 documentary film maker Carole Langer made a film that covered the plight of the so called “Radium Girls” who worked in the watch dial industry. The women, who had been told the paint was harmless, ingested deadly amounts of radium after being instructed to lick their paintbrushes to sharpen them; some even painted their fingernails with the glowing paint. Many of the women began to suffer from anemia, bone fractures and necrosis of the jaw, a condition now known as radium jaw. Many of these women died young.

The documentary interviews survivors from the industrial tragedy who relate their experiences of the poisoning and the bureaucratic nightmare they were forced to contend with in seeking compensation and justice. Radium City outlines the aftermath of these events with a focus on the social and political consequences as well as the medical ones.

According to the film, after the Radium Dial workers began to get sick, a lawsuit was brought against Radium Dial Company. With the looming lawsuit, it closed and then re-opened under the name Luminous Processes in another part of town. The workers, though more concerned, kept on working.

The film shows the dismantling of the High School where the Radium Dial Company was housed. The building materials were eventually turned into landfill. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency began removing contaminated material in 1986. The work continues.

After the plant closed and before it was dismantled many residents took items from the factory for their homes. This spread the contamination even further.

Areas still impacted by Radiation
Several areas of Ottawa are still radioactive. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a study outlining areas where contamination by radium-226 (Ra-226) as well as emissions of radon-222 (Rn-222) are at above normal levels. These areas include homes, public areas, schools, and even a car sales lot that is housed directly over the old Radium Dial Company site.

It should be noted that the radium in Ottawa's water supply is not from Radium Dial and Luminous Processes. Rather, it's naturally occurring and found in water from deep wells all over northern Illinois. A reverse osmosis water treatment plant removes the radium so the city's tap water complies with federal regulations.

Notable people



 * William D. Boyce, founder of Boy Scouts of America.
 * Stephen L. Brusatte, paleontologist.
 * Tom Corcoran, congressman.
 * William Cullen, congressman.
 * Santiago Durango, notable influential musician, now an appellate defender in Ottawa, IL.
 * Tim Finchem, golf commissioner.
 * Tom Flanagan, political scientist.
 * Maria Kanellis, actress, singer and former WWE Diva.
 * Harry Kelly, Governor of Michigan.
 * George R. Lawrence, photographer.
 * Russell Lee, photographer.
 * John Patrick Looney, gangster.
 * Theophilus Lyle Dickey, federal judge and Mexican-American War cavalry officer.
 * Terrence Malick, film writer/director.
 * Bob McGrath, actor, Sesame Street.
 * Aaron Shea, 2005 NFL player, Cleveland Browns.
 * Arthur L. Wagner, Brigadier General.
 * W. H. L. Wallace, Brigadier General.
 * Walt Willey, television actor, All My Children.
 * Alexander Wilson, writer and activist.
 * Reed G. Landis, World War I ace and National Commander of the American Legion.
 * Charles Edgar Woodward, federal judge United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.