Dubuque (dəbyōōk´), city (1990 pop. 57,546), seat of Dubuque co., NE Iowa, on the Mississippi River; chartered 1841. It is a trade, industrial, cultural, and rail center and a river port for an agricultural and dairying area. It makes foods, beer, metal products, chemicals, and machinery; high-technology industries are growing. The National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium anchors a redeveloped waterfront. One of the oldest cities in the state, it was named for Julien Dubuque, who had settled nearby c.1788. Native title to the territory ended with the Black Hawk Treaty of 1832, and white settlers began to pour in. Iowa's first newspaper, the Du Buque Visitor, was established in 1836. Dubuque developed first as a mining town, then as a lumbering and milling center. It is the seat of the Univ. of Dubuque, Clarke College, and Loras College. St. Raphael's Cathedral (1857) and the Ham House Museum are in the city; nearby are Crystal Lake Cave, the U.S. locks and dam on the Mississippi, and the New Mellera (Trappist) Abbey.

Julien Dubuque (dəbyōōk´), 1762–1810, pioneer settler of Iowa, b. Nicolet co., Que. Setting out at a young age for the West, Dubuque reached Prairie du Chien, in what is now Wisconsin, by 1785 and crossed to the Iowa side of the Mississippi, then in Spanish Louisiana. He ingratiated himself with a band of Fox encamped at a site nearby the present-day city of Dubuque, and by a written cession they gave (1788) him sole right to work their lead mines. This right was confirmed, and the first landholdings in Iowa to be given to a private individual were granted to him by Baron Carondelet, governor of Louisiana. For 20 years Dubuque worked the mines and traded in furs, employing indigenous people and French Canadian settlers. He retained the confidence of the Native Americans and was buried by them—with the honors of a chief—on a bluff overlooking the city named for him.

See biography by R. Herrman (1922).