Drainage of Raccoon Creek 65 



Just east of Rosedale in section 26, T 14 N, R 8 W, there is an 

 unusual amount of peat and bog, indicating recent laking. In the 

 memory of people now living this region has been constantly covered 

 with several inches of water. 



Between this sand dune divide and the turn in Raccoon Creek the 

 land is very flat and sandy. There are some artificial drainage ditches 

 dug through the region by the land owners. The largest one of these, 

 the Cox Dredge Ditch, follows, in my opinion, the ancient channel of 

 Raccoon Creek. It starts at the C. and E. I. R. R. tracks in section 2, 

 T 13 N, R 8 W, and flows southwest for about five miles into a small 

 branch of Otter Creek. It has not been a successful business venture 

 because the sand dunes have repeatedly clogged it and it has been sub- 

 ject to excessive filling in the spring. After passing the divide indi- 

 cated, however, its grade increases and it becomes a fair-sized stream 

 at its entrance into Otter Creek. 



Raccoon Creek, as I have indicated, does not follow the valley but 

 turns west in section 28, T 14 N, R 7 W, and, after a slight jog to 

 the south near the range line, turns abruptly north in section 36, T 14 N, 

 R 8 W — one mile east of Rosedale. From this point it flows northwest 

 for about ten miles, through Coxville, Mecca and Armiesburg, and then 

 west into the Wabash one mile south of Montezuma. It is joined in 

 section 23, T 14 N, R 8 W, by Little Raccoon, in section 16 by Iron's 

 Creek and in section 7, T 15 N, R 8 W, near Armiesburg, by Leather- 

 wood Creek — all coming from the northeast. 



Between Coxville and Armiesburg the valley varies from one- 

 fourth to three-fourths of a mile wide. There is some outcropping 

 along the hillside and a few bank coal mines on the west side. The 

 valley is regular except that there are two definite terraces — one on 

 the west side on which the village of Mecca stands and another on 

 the east side just north of Mecca. These terraces are about 25 feet 

 above the valley floor and are each approximately one mile long. The 

 narrowest part of the valley is above Mecca in section 17. Another 

 very narrow place is just below Coxville in section 22. Either of these 

 places might have been saddles, or low places in the divide, over which 

 the drainage was drawn. The gap in the Wabash bluff through which 

 the Raccoon-Leatherwood stream passes is over a mile wide and is 

 blocked by the Montezuma terrace. Raccoon valley, however, before 

 it meets Leatherwood, is only a quarter of a mile wide. The cut through 

 the terrace at Armiesburg is only about 750 feet wide. 



Clearly, the Raccoon once flowed directly southwest into the Wabash 

 below the south tip of Atherton Island. Just what caused the deflection 

 can probably never be fully determined. I will give several theories 

 in brief. 



Dryer" believes that there was once— probably in Illinoian times — 

 an ice dam stretching across the lower valley. The entire valley was 

 laked and finally the water found its way across a saddle at Coxville 

 into a tributary of Leatherwood Creek. This ice dam would also account 

 for the Bridgeton terrace. He indicates that at some time during the 



^ Loc. cit. 

 5—27933 



