DRAININC; THE SWAMPS 

 strength of this statement he traded thousands 

 of needles to the squaws and the wives of the 

 vv/hite hunters, in exchange he gave them a 

 needle for a rat skin. This vast region that 

 was considered worthless has made many a 

 rnan a small fortune. The best figures obtained 

 for the amount of furs caught and sold by the 

 hunters and trappers of the Kankakee Swamps 

 betv/een the years of 1850 and 1900 was ap- 

 proxim.ately three million, seven hundred and 

 liily thousand dollars, an average of seventy-five 

 thousand per year. Whenever there was a bill 

 up before tlie legislature for an appropriation for 

 the drainage of the swamp lands there was al- 

 ways enough to oppose it and cause its defeat 

 find vet the water soaked lands were doomed. 

 Pinally (he 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 

 thrvough the dense forest, tience the new Kan- 

 kakee River. The game had become almost 



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