AUBURN, the county-seat and the only city of Cayuga county (N.Y.), U.S.A., 25m. S.W. of Syracuse, on an outlet of Owasco lake, which lies two miles to the south-east. It is on the Yellowstone Trail ; and is served by the Lehigh Valley and the New York Central railways. Its area is 8.4sq.m. The popu lation was 36,192 in 192o; and was 36,652 in 193o by the Federal census. About 2o% are foreign-born, chiefly from Italy, Poland and Russia.
The city occupies an undulating site, over 7oof t. above sea level, in the heart of the Finger Lakes district. The wide streets are shaded with arching elms and other beautiful trees. The fertile surrounding country produces milk, corn, oats, barley, buckwheat, "Life of Anthony a Wood written by Himself" (Athen. Oxon., ed. Bliss) .
potatoes, hay, and fine fruits; and there are quarries of water lime, quicklime, gypsum and sandstone along the shores of Lake Cayuga. Auburn has 20-25 wholesale houses and over 700 retail stores. The principal manufactures are cordage and twine, agri cultural implements and wagons, shoes and shoe patterns and shoe racks, woollen goods, carpets and rugs, rubber stamps and inking pads, Diesel engines and oiling devices, forgings and cast ings, caps and hats, buttons, gramophone records and surgical instruments. Printing also is an important industry. The 88 manufacturing establishments within the city in 1927 had an output valued at $29,846,700. The assessed valuation of property in 1926 was $28,316,492.
On the summit of Fort Hill, in the south-western part of the city, is a grass-grown earthwork which was an ancient strong hold of the Cayugas; and in its centre stands a monument to the Cayuga chief Logan (b. 1725) who was an unswerving friend of the early settlers of this region. The home of William H. Seward, Lincoln's secretary of state, still stands in the heart of the city. The Auburn theological seminary (Presbyterian), founded in 1819, has a library of 43,000 volumes. The Seymour (public) library of 33,00o volumes is housed in the beautiful Case Memo rial building. The Auburn state prison, when it was built in 1816, embodied advanced ideas of prison construction, and the "Auburn System" (solitary confinement by night, combined with work in association during the day) received much attention from the penologists of Europe and America. The state prison for women is also situated here.
Auburn was founded in 1793 by Capt. John L. Hardenburgh, on the site of a Cayuga village called Wasco, near the place where the Genesee Trail crossed the outlet of the lake, and at first it was called Hardenburgh Corners. In 1805 it was chosen as the county-seat, and in 1815 it was incorporated. It was chartered as a city in 1848, and since 1920 has had the commission-manager form of government.