Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 103, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 September 1901 — Surveying the Kankakee Swamp [ARTICLE]

Surveying the Kankakee Swamp

The survey authorised by the last legislature of the swamp lands belonging to the state in LaPorte, Porter, Stark, Jasper and St. Joseph counties will be completed within a few weeks, as George D. Park and a corps of engineers have been at work there nearly two months. There are several thousand acres of these swamp lands, lying mostly in the basin of the Kankakee river, and while a numb«r of plans to redeem them have been considered, none has been oarried out. It was provided in the general appropriation bills that a competent surveyor should be appointed to run levels along the Kankakee river from the Illinois state line to the crossing of the Pittsburg, Ft, Wayne & Chicago road; also to make a survey of the sWamp state lands in the counties mentioned and to furnish the governor with plats, to be filed in the counties in which the survey is made, and from which a report can be made to the next legislature. Mr. Park, reporting the progress of his work, says that over 5,000 aores of land will be inoluded in the survey and that, if redeemed, the state could sell it at prices ranging from S2O to S4O an aore. A part of the land has been settled by “squatters,” who have never been molested, and the land they have under cultivation is producing the finest corn in the statp. It will be necessary Mr. Parks says, to lower the Kankakee river bed about two feet, so there, will be a ourrent to drain the water from the surrounding country. Mr. Park predicts that the squatters and the enoroaohing land owners will make a hard fight before they will yield possession.