Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 December 1902 — BIG DITCH CONTRACT LET. [ARTICLE]

BIG DITCH CONTRACT LET.

Crown Point, Ind., Dec. 18. — Preliminary steps are under way in the northwestern counties of Indiana, including Laporte, Lake, Porter, Starke and Jasper, to erect what will probably be the largest artificial waterway of its kind east of the Mississippi River. When completed it will reclaim hundreds of thousands of acres of Kankakee marsh lands which are now regarded as worthless. A contraot has been let for the first 14 miles in Laporte and Starke Counties for $120,000. The ditch will be 80 feet wide and 16 feet deep. It is the plan of the other counties to continue the great ditch to the Illinois line, a distance of 60 miles. The total cost will be about $1,000,000. Tbe project has been taken up by the owners of large ranches along the Kankakee. The payment is to be made by assessments on benefits derived from the ditches.