Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 January 1917 — KANKAKEE MARSHES FOR A STATE PARK [ARTICLE]

KANKAKEE MARSHES FOR A STATE PARK

Indiana Sportmen Are Making Fight to Save This Natural Beauty Spit. , Kentland Enterprise. , Letters have been received bv legislators throughout Indiana, asking them to organize committees and collect money for state park purposes, writes Andrew E. Alberts in Indianapolis Star. These letters were signed by Governor Ralston and James P. Goodrich, his successor, and said that the park project was started in the state centennial year. Sportsmen of Indiana will recognize in that statement a slight mistake, for the greatest park project that was ever be-, fore the state was started previously to that time—-the Kankakee project. The truth is that the Kankakee proejct ought to receive some serious consideration from the legislature, for it offers much to the future of the state so far as recreation plaices are,, concerned, and every sportsman, every VacationaKst and especially every Iman interested in conservation ought work for it. ■_ The Kankakee is not simply a river, it is a region. Geologists say the old St. Joseph once flowed straight west from the point now occupied by the city of South Bend. South Bend or something else got in the way and the river, instead of continuing west, turned north at South Bend and instead of flowing its waters toward the Gulf of Mexico, it seceded from the Mississippi union and joined the sGreat Lake faction. the Kankakee was 4eft with the old St. Joseph valley and it proceeded to use it. It grew up a fringe of trees along its bank —yellow birch, quaking asp, willows and the like. Today you will find the Kankakee much as it was in the old, old days of the Indian—not a fence for miles, swampy woods and marshy prairies, untilled, with bayous running through it, with wild duck nesting there in summer, with long ridges of sand and gravel and with coyotes, foxes and rabbits “using” these ridges. You will _ find the marshes filled with bird life in summer and the stream and bayous yielding good sish —bass, pike, croppies and the more common run of catches. There is possibly some difference of opinion about the agricultural value of this region but if it is valuable it has lain at the door of Chicago and orfly four hours from Indianapolis with its riches unclaimed. Today it is still a wild waste. The soil is sandy in the part wanted for a state park. When a tree- falls down its roots skim off a thin layer of soil on top, exposing a depth of sand beneath. The plan is to get thirty to fifty miles of stream, with one to three • miles of land on each side, and to make it into a park. Doubtless those owning the land would be willing to sell. Undoubtedly the sportsmen and conservationalists want to buy. The’ trouble is that there is not yet a plan for the purchase, Eugene C, Shireman, the fish and game commissioner, has been considering this project for a 'long time and has done some work on it, aided by Indiana sportsmen, some of whom have given time, money and effort to the cause. Shireman doubtless could give interested legislators some good ideas pi) which to wqrk: