Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 November 1888 — M’COOK’S GIGANTIC PLAN. [ARTICLE]

M’COOK’S GIGANTIC PLAN.

A Scheme to Divert tlio Missouri’s Course and Reclaim Valuable Bands. General McCook, of Foit' Leavenworth, Kan., is engineering a gigantic scheme for the improvement of £he Missouri River at the fort, and fbo consequent salvage of thousands of acres of bottom land lyiug opposite Leavenworth. Just above ” the fort the river makes a straight eastern bend of over a mile and a quarter, and, turning south and west again, makes a gigantic turn like a capital U. The Missouri side of this bend has been badly cut for years, aud the Rock Island Railway has moved its road a mile inland to avoid the wrter. Acre after acre of valuable land has fallen into the river. Gen. McCook will soon ask permission of the Secretary of War to use the prison labor to cut a canal at the base of the bend. He estimates that with the use of the military convicts he can, in two months, open up this canal to a depth of feet the entire length of its baso, and Avili, Avith the aid of the spring floods, straighten out the course of the river. The Avork will be of incalculable benefit to Leavemvorth.