ABOUT THIS BOOK

John Thompson provides a historical account of the development process, sectoral conflicts, and outcomes related to major alterations of land and water relationships, as well as habit changes, caused in the valley downstream from Peoria by the large-scale reclamations for agriculture and the post-1900 intrusion of large volumes of waste water from the Sanitary and Ship Canal of Chicago.

Thompson examines the history of the land drainage movement and the inevitable environmental changes caused by the intensification of urban and rural land use in the Midwest between sixty and one hundred years ago. He shows how institutions of land drainage were organized and operated and how the nascent drainage engineering and contracting sectors functioned. Focusing on the lower valley, Thompson also deals with drainage as it affects the nation, the Midwest, Chicago, and downstate Illinois.

Thompson is the first to address the array of interrelated physical, economic, and political circumstances caused by the development of competing and incompatible uses for the waters and the floodplain of the Illinois River when large-scale land reclamation and great volumes of water from Lake Michigan and Chicago changed land and water relationships, destroyed a major riverine fishing industry, and severely damaged renowned waterfowl hunting grounds.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

John Thompson is a professor emeritus of geography at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He is the coauthor of The Tule Breakers: The Story of the California Dredge (with E. A. Dutra) and the author of Flood Chronologies and Aftermaths Affecting the Lower Sacramento River, 1878–1909.

REVIEWS

“Wetlands Drainage, River Modification, and Sectoral Conflict in the Lower Illinois Valley, 1890–1930 is the only detailed account of the demise of natural wetlands along the Illinois River and the development of levee systems and their effect on wetlands. It is one of the most superior scholarly works I have reviewed. It brings together, in orderly form, a massive amount of information that has never before been assimilated.”—Robert Mohlenbrock

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TABLE OF CONTENTS






List of Illustrations vii
List of Tables ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xix
i. The Physical Setting and General Context of Land Drainage
The Physical Stage 3
Legislated Institutional Framework for Drainage lo
The Economic Context 16
Contextual Summary and Foretaste 21
2. The Construction and Spread of Drainage Districts 23
Floodplain Conditions at the Turn of the Century 25
Levee Building 29
Development of Interior Ditch Systems 40
Construction and Operating Costs 41
Assessment of the Work 44
The Reclamation Achievement 48
3. The Role of Pumps in Land Drainage 62
Adoption of Pumps 64
Pumping Facility Functions 65
Trial and Error 67
Pump House Location and Characteristics 72
Retrospect 76
4. Shapers of the Drainage Landscape 78
Land Drainage Precedents in Central Illinois 79
Excavators on the Bottoms 82
Contract Advertising and Negotiation 88
Comparative Costs 90
The Drainage Contractors 90
End of the Dredge Contracting Era 96




5. Challenges Engineered by Other Sectors 1oo
Navigation Improvements, 1869-1899 102
The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal 103
Resolving the In-State Conflict 1io
Retrospect 111
6. Days of Reckoning for Reclamation 114
Foretaste of Trouble 114
The Flood Event of 1922 121
The Floods of 1926 and 1927 127
State and Federal Flood Control Assistance 133
Market Disaster and Early Aftermath 138
7. Agricultural Activity and Settlement in the 1920s  142
The Measure of the Bottomlands 144
The Agricultural Scene 146
The Texture of Human Occupance 150
8. Harvesting Nature's Endowment 161
Timber Cutting 164
Trapping 165
Waterfowl Hunting 166
Commercial Fishing 169
Pollution and the Fisheries 177
Mussel Gathering 178
Development of Rod and Gun Clubs 180
Conflict over Wetlands Use and Access 182
Redefining Public Interest 190
Taking Stock 196
9. Retrospect 200
Notes 215
Bibliography 259
Index 277