Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 January 1912 — PEOPLE ARE MYSTIFIED BY BIG LAND PURCHASE. [ARTICLE]

PEOPLE ARE MYSTIFIED BY BIG LAND PURCHASE.

Suspicion That Powder May Be Located in Kankakee Township In The Near Future. The purchase of Michael J. Kanally, a Chicago lawyer, of 1,593 acres of land in Kankakee township, and also of a right of way for sufficient width for a railroad from the land, which lies along the Kankakee river, to the C. A E. I. railroad, a short distance northeast of the town of Wheatfleld, has caused a great amount of specu-lation-within the past week. Mr. Kanally followed tfie buying job diligently, paying an extremely large price for much of the land, based upon the prevailing prices there. He maintained a complete air of mystery and people did not seem to know what was going on until he had secured practically all of sections 5, 6, 7 and 8 in the northwest corner of Kankakee township and several small tracts and the narrow strip to tbe Indiana coal road. It is .understood that H. W. Marble, who had sold him 40 acres and a right-of-way through a tract acres, asked him what he was buying the land and was told that it was none of his business. Possibly not just that plain but in words that left no doubt with Mr. Marble that be would not be told. There is a suspicion that a powder mill is to bw. established on tbe land purchased and that a spur will be built from the mill to the C. A E. I. and the Chicago, Indiana A Southern railroads. This would not meet the approval of the people of that section of Jasper county, but if that was the intention of the purchaser as the attorney for a corporation he has probably gone so far that the plan could not be blocked.