Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 62, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 March 1904 — High Water On The Kankakee [ARTICLE]

High Water On The Kankakee

The e’uggish Kankakee, as if to show its contempt, for the puny efforts to keep it witbin due bounds and deprive it of its annual excursion over the lowland along its course, has transformed itself into a raging torrent and, bursting its banks everywhere, is running now over thousands of acres of valuable corn ground supposed to be ample protected from such an aqueous invasion by the numerous reclamation ditches that have been constructed duridg re cent years. Not in decades has such a flood been seen in this region. Roads and fences are submerged, newly built bouses and barns stand surrounded by a waste of rising water, traction engines and agricultural machinery may been seen at every farmstead three or four feet deep in the flood. Railroad passengers traveling through the south part of Lake county in the past three weeks have witnessed scenes of desolation and, in soma plaoes, destruction that raise sime speculation as to whether the ground can be dried to put crops for this season. Tne overflow has now reached its height and seems to be subsiding slightly since Sunday. The owners of land ass acted are not discouraged and think this year’s ditching will make a repetition of the fl iod impossible for all fntnre time. —Hammond Tribune.