Historic newspaper articles about the draining of the Little River Valley often refer to it as the Great Marsh, and it was.
Spreading over about 25,000 acres, it filled the valley from the southwest side of Fort Wayne to just east of Huntington, newspaper reports from the late 1800s and early 1900s said. The portion in Allen County was mostly marshy prairie, while the land in Huntington County was more wooded, the Fort Wayne Daily Gazette reported on Jan. 9, 1883. The article described a report by Professor John L. Campbell, the leader of a state-commissioned survey examining the potential for draining Indiana’s marshlands.
“‘The chief obstruction to the drainage of Little River is this ledge of limestone, which lies across the channel at Huntington,’” the Daily Gazette quoted Campbell as reporting. “‘The entire fall from the starting point in Allen County, 17 miles from the upper dam at Huntington, is 32 feet, but nearly one-half of this fall is found in the 5 miles at the lower end. The improvement of the river and the recovery of the marshlands above will require the removal of the upper dam at Huntington and the opening of a channel through this rock obstruction.’”
“” The nearness of this vast marsh to one of the largest and most flourishing cities in the state makes its reclamation especially important,’” Campbell noted, calling the wetlands “practically worthless.’”
Before drainage, the water level in the valley measured 8 feet higher than after drainage, the Fort Wayne Daily News reported In a June 25, 1889, story. The article noted people previously had to worry about the Toledo, Wabash & Western Railway track being “so deeply submerged that trainmen, armed with pike poles, have been stationed on engine pilots to free the rails of driftwood, and that the (steam) locomotives have occasionally been ‘killed’ by the extinguishment of their fires.”
“Fifteen-hundred acres are constantly submerged and profitless to the owners,” the Daily Gazette reported in an April 9, 1887, story updating the status of plans to drain the land. The reporter described the wetlands as “a barren waste of swamp land which stretches 10 miles along the (railroad) track and extends to either side farther than the eye can reach. Here and there, clumps of scraggy timber relieve the dreary monotony of the view. The oases in the watery desert are termed islands. They are few in number and small in extent and are inaccessible from the railway track most of the year unless the traveler is equipped with a boat or hip boots. Through this great marsh, many shallow but broad streams run, or rather lie, for their sluggish motion suggests a pond rather than a watercourse. Above, at this time of year, wheel ducks in great squawking flocks, seeking safety from the hunters who pick their uncertain way through the mud and reeds of the treacherous bog.”
At least one news report said that in addition to considering the marshland useless, area residents at the time also voiced health concerns. The Fort Wayne News and Sentinel reported on Aug. 3, 1874, that it had interviewed several leading local doctors, who all believed that the large swamp just outside the city caused many diseases.
Efforts to drain the Little River valley began in 1875 with the formation of the Little River Ditching Association, the Fort Wayne Daily Gazette reported in its April 9, 1887, article. Association directors developed drainage plans and let bids for the work but never awarded any contracts, the newspaper said.
The Fort Wayne Weekly Sentinel reported on June 7, 1876, that some landowners in the affected area protested the assessments they would have to pay to cover the cost of the drainage work. They argued the Little River Ditching Association had been created improperly, and an Allen County court agreed.
A different group of local leaders created the Little River Ditching Co. to push forward with the drainage project, the Fort Wayne Daily News reported on June 25, 1889. The article recapped the project as it neared completion. Plans called for converting the Little River into a ditch and adding additional ditches to drain the wetlands.
Nine contractors bid on the project, the Daily News reported. Ditch Commissioner Edward Ely awarded the contract on July 7, 1886, for $137,017.74 to Joseph Derheimer, one of the Little River Ditching managers, along with Henry C. Paul. The contract cost equates to about $4.6 million in today’s dollars.
To complete the drainage work, the Daily News said in the June 1889 article that Little River Ditching Co. used:
• Four steam dredges
• Four stone derricks
• Two steam pumps of 3 million gallons capacity each
• Two drilling boilers
• Seven steam rock drills
• Typically 150 to 200 laborers
• More than 25 tons of dynamite to blast the limestone ledge near Huntington
• More than 2,000 days of work by laborers
The dredges floated on a barge-like base while they scooped out soil and vegetation to cut drainage ditches through the marsh. The ditch blasted through the limestone ledge near Huntington, measuring 30 feet wide on the bottom and 40 to 50 feet wide on the top, the article said. Workers excavated the ledge to a maximum depth of 14 feet.
“What was once a wild, disease-breeding swamp is now taking on the appearance of a fertile and beautiful valley,” the Daily News article said. “Large amounts of timber have been cut and worked up into lumber, wood, staves, heading, etc. Fences have been built, and the whole of the immense tract, which was a wild waste, without any appearance of ownership, will soon blossom with the abundant crops.
“Last year, when the ditches were far from complete, some 200 acres of new ground were cropped and, in every instance, whether corn, rye, timothy, potatoes, celery or root crops were put in, the rich black loam, which had never been vexed by plow or spade, has yielded an abundant harvest,” the article said. “This year, over 1,000 acres have been planted, and the yield will be surprisingly large.”
The Daily Democrat newspaper in Huntington reported on May 31, 1889, that the drainage project would be completed that week.
Numerous landowners along the Little River ditch, however, opposed final approval of the project report, saying the work wasn’t done properly and hadn’t been completed, the Fort Wayne Daily Gazette reported Nov. 5, 1889. Two months later, though, the Fort Wayne Sentinel noted on Jan. 3, 1890, that Allen Superior Court had approved the final project reports.
“The main ditch has numerous branches and drains 40,000 acres of land southwest of Fort Wayne and, with its tributaries, 80,000 acres are affected,” the Sentinel said. Other newspapers reported that the drainage project would benefit land in Allen, Huntington, and Whitley counties.
Nature didn’t surrender easily, though. Fire swept through the valley in October 1889, burning hundreds of now-dry acres and destroying miles of fencing, The Fort Wayne News said. Within six years, debris and logjams had begun clogging the Little River ditch, causing flooding that destroyed crops and left some farms unprofitable, the Fort Wayne Weekly Journal said Oct. 8, 1896.
The flooding risks persist even today and were among the reasons farmers sold some of the land now part of Eagle Marsh.
Whenever we get heavy rains or a quick snow melt that sends water spilling out onto the Little River Valley bottomlands, the Great Marsh lets us know it’s still there, waiting to sprout again.
Thanks for researching and writing this history of the marsh. Very interesting, especially to see that nature fights back with fire and water.