Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 February 1907 — STERNBERGS SECURE ANOTHER BIG DITCH CONTRACT. [ARTICLE]

STERNBERGS SECURE ANOTHER BIG DITCH CONTRACT.

C. H. Sternberg & Son, the contractors on the main Iroquois ditch, including the rock excavation in Rensselaer, secured another big ditch contract this week on the Hoagland ditch in White county. They get in on sections 1, 3. 4, and their bids were 10 45, 7.35 and 7.45 cents per cubic yard respectively, aggregating $120,525. W. E. Fox & Co., of Wolcott get sections 2,5, 6, which includes the tile and stone work, and aggregates $39,619.72. Speaking of the letting the Monticello Journal says: “One gentleman in talking about the undertaking said, ‘May God have mercy on the Sternbergs. They can take the dirt out in that cut off, but can they keep it out?’ If anybody can the Sternbergs can. In their first venture into dredging their friends begged them to desist, but they went ahead and wrestled victory and a profit out of what everyone predicted would be a Waterloo to them, and they have undertaken more hazardous jobs than any other company of the same age in the country and made more money out of the ventures. “So the work seems to have fallen into safe hands. Their competitors were all safe dredge men who would have been equal to the job had any of them secured it but Sternbergs’ had the pole that knocked the persimmons.” The ditch is 41 miles in length and the total cost is over $160,000, making it the largest ditch contract in the history of White county. It affects lands in the southeast part of this county also.