24/7 Trauma and Biohazard Cleanup in Burlington, IA

Burlington is the county seat of Des Moines County and was founded in 1833, shortly after the Black Hawk Purchase opened the land to settlement.

In 1834, settler John Gray paid $50 for the right to name the town and chose Burlington in honor of his hometown of Burlington, Vermont.

Before settlement, the Sauk and Meskwaki peoples called the area Shoquoquon, meaning 'Flint Hills,' and treated it as neutral ground.

In 1805, Lieutenant Zebulon Pike landed at the bluffs below present-day Burlington and raised the United States flag for the first time on what would become Iowa soil.

Burlington became the second territorial capital of the Wisconsin Territory in 1837 and then the first territorial capital of the Iowa Territory in 1838, with the government meeting in Old Zion, the first Methodist church in Iowa.

Iowa's 'Hawkeye' nickname has roots in Burlington: at Judge David Rorer's suggestion, publisher James G. Edwards renamed his newspaper The Hawk-Eye in tribute to Chief Black Hawk.

Burlington is the home of Snake Alley, billed as the crookedest street on earth — a single 276-foot block of brick with five switchbacks, a 60-foot climb and an average grade of 12.5 percent.

Burlington hosts the Snake Alley Criterium, a bicycle race over a hilly 15-block downtown course that climbs Snake Alley itself.

The 2020 census counted 23,982 people in Burlington, down from 25,663 in 2010, and the city had 10,629 households.

Burlington is the center of a micropolitan area that includes West Burlington and Middletown in Iowa and Gulfport, Illinois, across the Mississippi River.