DRAINING THE SWAMPS 

 strength of this statement he traded thousands 

 of needles to the squaws and the wives of the 

 white hunters, in exchange he gave them a 

 needle for a rat skin. This vast region that 

 was considered worthless has made many a 

 man a small fortune. The best figures obtained 

 for the amount of furs caught and sold by the 

 hunters and trappers of the Kankakee Swamps 

 between the years of 1850 and 1900 was ap- 

 proximately three million, seven hundred and 

 fitly thousand dollars, an average of seventy-five 

 thousand per year. Whenever there was a bill 

 up before the legislature for an appropriation for 

 the drainage of the swamp lands there was al- 

 ways enough to oppose it and cause its defeat 

 and yet the water soaked lands were doomed. 

 Finally the fatal day came. A big dredging ma- 

 chine was set to work in the river a few miles 

 above Baum's Bridge and excavated a great 

 ditch of one hundred and fifty feet in width 

 through the dense forest. Hence the new Kan- 

 kakee River. The game had become almost 



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