Wazirabad: History
The city was founded by Shaikh Ilam-ud-Din Chinioti, better known by his title Wazir Khan, who was the governor of Punjab during the reign of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, in the 17th century. The town was taken over by Charat Singh around 1760, together with other towns in the district. Maharaja Ranjit Singh occupied the town in 1809, and Avitabile was appointed as the Nazim of the city. He built an entirely new town, with a straight, broad bazaar running through it and side streets at right angles.
During British period, Wazirabad was the headquarters of the old Wazirabad District, broken up in 1851–2, and was the site of a military cantonment moved to Sialkot in 1855.
The municipality was created in 1867; the population, according to the 1901 census, was 18,069. The annual income during the ten years ending 1902-3 averaged Rs. 20,800, and the expenditure Rs. 21,400. In 1903–04, the income was Rs. 20,800, chiefly from octroi, and the expenditure was Rs. 19,200. The town had a considerable trade in timber, which comes down the Chenab from Jammu territory. The smiths of Wazirabad had a reputation for the manufacture of small articles of cutlery, and the town of Nizamabad within a mile of the town is famed for its weapons. Wazirabad was an important junction on the North-Western Railway, as the Sialkot-Jammu and Lyallpur lines both branch off of here.
The Chenab river is spanned opposite Wazirabad by the Alexandra railway bridge, one of the finest engineering works of the kind in India, which was opened in 1876 by Edward VII the King-Emperor when he was the Prince of Wales. The town possessed two Anglo-Vernacular high schools, one maintained by the Church of Scotland Mission, and a government dispensary.