Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 94, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 August 1899 — Kankakee Drainage Again. [ARTICLE]

Kankakee Drainage Again.

r The subject of draining the the Kankakee swamp region keeps bobbing up every onoe in a while, and will continue to so bob until some feasible plan for accomplishing the great work is finally adopted. The latest regarding the matter is contained in a dispatch in the Indianapolis Journal, of Thursdays" from Crown Point. We append the dispatch but do not vouch for its reliability as Crown Point is a point where many unreliable newspaper dispatches emenate from. The following is the dispatch: Crown Point, Ind., July 28. —At a meeting in Chicago today between John Brown, president of the First National Bank, of this city, and an extensive ranch owner in the Kankakee marsh, and Nelson Morris, B. J. Gifford, J. E. Carman and others, owners of great ranohes fbere also, plans were devised to reclaim 500,000 acres of marsh land by a thorough system of drainage. The quartet of men own the whole southern portions of Lake and Porter and northern part of Newton and Jasper counties, which is all marsh land, only fit for pasture during dry seasons. This step has been figured on for several years, but Nelson Morris fought it bitterly until now, when he has given consent to go ahead. He feared if it was drained it would ruin the marsh pasture for his thousands of cattle, but now believes the system is all right. Immense ditches will be used.