Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 262, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 November 1910 — Will Carry to Courts Plan to Dam Kankakee. [ARTICLE]

Will Carry to Courts Plan to Dam Kankakee.

Governor Marshall will attempt in the federal courts to have an injunction issue to prevent thp construction of a dam across the Kankakee river at Monfence by a corporation seeking water power. The proposed dam, it is said, will cause the water to back up in the Kankakee and overflow thousands of acres of land which the state years ago reclaimed from swampy wastes and which are now under cultivation. The general assembly in 1889 appropriated $40,000, which was used in removing a ledge of limestone in the Kankakee near Momence, with the result that the river was opened and thousands of acres of land in Indiana and Illinois drained and subsequently made tillable. Much of the land on of the line was owned by the state, by natural swamp rights, and was sold to citizens. James Bingham, attorney-general, in san opinion rendered to the governor, held that the state would have recourse the corporation proposing to build the dam, on the grounds that the state still has title to many acres of land that would be affected by the proposed dam, and on the further grounds that the backing up of the water, as represented to be a natural result of the dam, would result in the destruction of much property belonging to citizens of the state. Governor Marshall asked for the opinion on receipt of a letter from a farmer living near Momence asking whether the state could bring suit for damages or whether 'it would be necessary for some Individual citizen to act.'