People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 March 1896 — The Pinkamink Overflow. [ARTICLE]

The Pinkamink Overflow.

To the Editor of the Peoplo’c Pilot. I ’desire, through your paper, to call the attention of our esteemed co-operator in the development of Jasper. county, Benjamin F. Gifford, whose great work of reclaiming the wet lands of this locality is tally appreciated, to certain conditions that have resulted from the changing of the channel of the Pinkamink,and which greatly damage lands situated in Marion, Barkley and Union townships, in the valley of the Iroquois river. The lands have not only been inundafed where they were previously free from water, but travel has been almost made impossible at the crossing at Burk’s bridge. The grades at this bridge have been quite impassable and dangerous most of - this winter from overflow of water and ice. Lands along the Iroquois have now become worthless, though they were good hay and pasturage tracts before said drainage was done. The county has spent a great deal of money at the road crossings for bridges and grades, which would have been efficient had not the Pinkamink channel been changed, which is about five miles north of the original course. Mr. Giffords’s cutting a large dredge ditch through Barkley has been a great help to portions of the county, but it has flooded other portions mentioned. Now I think the Hon. Board of County Commissioners and the several Township Trustees should call Ms. Gifford’s attention to these facts at once and ask him to take the waters of the Pinkamink down as far as the old mouth of that stream where it originally emptied into the Iroquois, and explain to him the damage it is doing to all concerned and the remedy for it. I think he would willingly continue his dredge on down the Iroquois to the point Suggested, and I also think that if that was 1 done it would solve the question of taking out the rock in the rapids at Rensselaer, rendering such work unnecessary to thoroughly drain the Iroquois valley. I realize that Mr. Gifford has done much for Jasper county and there is a reluctance of the people 1 to embarrass him in any way in his great Wbrk of reclaiming the worthless swamps. It iB my opinibh that when the matter is properly presented to him he will willingly remedy thd defect in his drainage system and thereby remove all cause for complaint, as it will not be of serious expense to him. D. H. Yeoman.