Lake Maxinkuckee, Physical and Biological Survey 265 



Railroad to South Bend the Terre Haute people came in goodly 

 numbers. The good qualities of the lake were first made known 

 to the Indianapolis people by Hon. Martin H. Rice, who had known 

 the lake since 1855, and when the railroad was completed the fish- 

 ermen from the capital city came up, first singly, then by twos 

 and threes, and finally by the dozen, to try their luck in the clear 

 waters of our beautiful lake. They found good quarters at the 

 Allegheny House, and they brought along their finest fishing tackle, 

 their well-tried fly rods, their Frankfort reels, and the most ap- 

 proved artificial baits, and they all caught fish — all kinds of fish — 

 and enough to make a goodly show in their fish baskets, and nearly 

 every man of them had a bundle of smashed fishing tackle to take 

 home to prove the truth of his story of the big fish he had hooked, 

 but which got away. And the men from these cities came again 

 and again, and they caught something besides the fishes; they 

 caught a vision of the glory of the lake, with its clear waters, its 

 tree-lined shores, its wooded bluffs, its clean sandy beaches over 

 which gurgled the cool waters of its crystal springs, and the vision 

 went with them to their homes, to their business rooms, and it 

 would not depart, and they began to long for a portion of bluff, of 



^■.U .»v:--J':^i- 



The charm of Maxinkuckee rests jiaitly on its brilliant water above a clean gravel floor, 

 and partly on the elevated shore line covered with grass and grove down to the water edge. 



