People's Pilot, Volume 2, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 May 1893 — That Ship Canal. [ARTICLE]

That Ship Canal.

link o . T boundary Une between Lake and Porter wuntieS, to strike south bv alitie east tdl it reaches the Kanka follow up tne Kankakee J bridge, and from there to the Monon, Tippecanoe, ' to the!

Dunn a south by eas„ and down that to tu«. ami down the Tippecanoe Wabash. This route would Cu, across the northeast corner of Jasper county. The Kankakee river would supply the water for the canal, both' north and south from it. Prof. Campbell says there are no very formidable engineering difficulties in the way of such a canal, and thinks that its benefits would be very great. —Republican. Oh, what a project, the water of the Kankakee to run both north and south, up hill and dowm. We have known this stream for over thirty years, have seen it as “full as a goose” a hundred times, have seen it foaming, frothing, almost beside itself, but never so badly “off” as to run both north and south at the same time. In all itg ups and downs these thirty years, its course has steadily and constantly been to the southwest. In these thirty years this river and its regions have been surveyed by the government, the slate and the Kankakee Drainage Co., of 1871. Thousands and thousands of dollars have been squandered by “well known civil engineers” and never a shovel full of dirt has been dug. Ten years ago Prof. Campbell swamped several thousand dollars of state appropriation on the Kankakee and never a drop of water was disturbed. That route the Prof, speaks of from Dunn’s bridge to the big Monon he has never seen. He tried to run a line from English Lake (the lowest point on the Kankakee) to the Monon, but when five miles south he found himself 20 feet above the river and the land still rising. The project was then abandoned, and we have never heard anything more of it till the above appeared in last week’s Republican. What this Kankakee country wants is a few Giffords, a few home ditching companies. A ship canal is only *a bid for a few more government and state surveys, only a wild scheme to work up a job for “well known civil engineers.” There can be no nicer snap for “well known engineers” than this Kankakee surveying picnic. Prof. Campbell and his corps when here had a jolly good time, fishing, hunting, frolicking and surveying a little. It was so pleasant and nice that even Gov. Porter came up, camped out with the boys and went “sniping.” One of the “well known” that summer, being asked by. a “sandlapper” how long the surveyors were going to stay,.replied: “Oh as long as the appropriation lasts.” No countenance should be given this silly scheme. We have had thirty years of “well known civil engineering” now. We want a few years of actual digging.

_ The object of a ship canal to WaK Lake Michi # an with the Wabash river, and through that with the Ohio and Missfssippf (has received some attention ffi the state legislature, and is now being agitated to some extent™ he Indianapolis papers. Prof.

1 t r JV —papers. Prof of Crawfords I 'die, the well known civil en°i- ! neer, who has made a thorough IS Vey - ° f the Kankakee river re-1 g on, is an earnest advocate of I the project. His plan is to hare ! the canal leave Lake M chi4 ‘ at a point about on the boundan-