Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 132, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 November 1903 — Col. Gifford's Ditches and Railroads. [ARTICLE]

Col. Gifford's Ditches and Railroads.

Col. B. J. Gifford, during his visit here Tuesday, stated that he had just come to the conclusion that it was not well for a man to work hard too continuously and that he had concluded to rest from his labors for a while. For 12 years he has had from one to three steam dredges at work in his Jasper county lands; and since the phenomenal high water of the summer of* 1902 he had been especially active in the dredging line. By deepening and widening his main ditches he has increased their carrying oapaoity six fold, and he does not believe it possible for his lands to be over-flowed again. One of his two remaining dredges is already In dry dock and out of commission and the other will be in a few weeks; and he thinks it will be a number of years before he will need them again, if stall. Regarding the extension of his railroad northward he says he expects to do but little more until spring. It is built to the Kankakee and the bridge across that river is completed, but farther than that he is not likely to go spring. In all he now has 30 miles of railroad completed, which of itself is quite a big railroad to have all been built solely at one man's expense.