Jasper County Democrat, Volume 10, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 March 1908 — HIGH WATER EVERYWHERE. [ARTICLE]

HIGH WATER EVERYWHERE.

March started in last Sunday soon after midnight with quite a good deal of lightning and some rain. Wednesday afternoon and night there was more rain and Thursday a heavy downpour added to the water from the disappearing snow. Along the Kankakee the water is reported the highest for many years, while at Rensselaer the Iroquois Thursday night and yesterday was away out of its banks and all the low lands covered with water. Down about the creamery bridge A. L. Willis, who has lived there for 29 years, says the water is highest he has ever seen it except when blockaded by ioe at the bridge. The engine used by the rock drillers on the river rock contract broke from its moorings south of the Washington street bridge during ths early hours yesterday morning, about 3 o’clock, and was swept down stream. It struck the bridge with terrific force and crashed part way through it, breaking clear through the timbers of the walk on the south side of the bridge and overturning the engine and dumping it into the river. The platform on which it was mounted floated on down to the creamery bridge where it lodged. The water covers the Washburn pasture and about Donnelly Bros, plaining mill from one to five feet in depth. The sidewalk and roadway leading to the cemetery is also covered with several feet of water. The snow is practically all gone now and the high water will begin to subside today.