Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1902-07-24
THE FLOODED DISTRICTS.
Serious Conditions Along the Upper
Mississippi Caused by
High Water.
MOST COSTLY IN THE RIVERS HISTORY.
An Estimated Loss of Six Millions of Dol.
lars, With Half as Much More Inc vitable
Even II There Is No Further Augmenta-
tions of the Supply of Flood Water
From Above.

Keokuk, Ia, July 20.-Exploration
Of the flooded districts of the Missis-
sippi river from Keokuk south shows
conditions beyond the appreciation
or realization of any but people OF
long experience with the Father OF
Waters in it's most destructive mood.
The situation is growing worse
hourly, and a great confagration in a
great city would not be more rapidly
destructive of values than the
antithesis a hundred miles below
Keokuk. There is absolutely not the
slightest chance of stopping this
dozen-times most costly food in the
history of the great river above st.
Louis. A correspondent went over
the most damaged area to-day in a
launch and found everywhere the
greatest crops ever known under wa
ter deep enough to float a steamboat.
People at the river cities give an i'm
mense mass of details, all to be gen.
eralized in losses aggregating many
millions of dollars; hundreds OF
farmers rich ten days ago are penni-
less and homeless; hundreds watch-
ing and praying that the great levees
may hold which are now their bull
wark against additional millions OF
loss and many cases of penury.
Careful estimates of the territory
covered and generalization of the
statements of best-informed people
indicate the loss up to to-day is about
six million dollars, with every pros
pect of two or three millions addi-
tional blythe rise above not yet reach
ing the lower stretches of the river.
Most of the loss is on the Missouri
side of the river between Keokuk and
Hannibal.
Passing the w~ater-lapped lumber
yards of Keokuk, the mouth of the
Des Moines river is seen to be near
ly two miles wide. Normally there
are two mouths and an island delta
covered with farms, which are under
raging torrents.
Alexandria was protected to the
last by the Egyptian levee, the break
ing of which would send four feet
of water all over the town. Gregory
is submerged except the white church
in which service vas held to-day, the
praying congregation from the coun-
try reaching the house of God by the
railroad track which is still above
the flood in a waste of waters miles
wide. Other towns and cities on the
islands are beyond the danger line.
Shore lights for pilots are stand
ing in the midst of a waste of waters
| where steamboats, can run over them.
The river is five to ten miles wide and
70 niles long, and another great lake
is added to the geography. All this
territory was practicallycovered with
corn a fortnight ago, estimated to
make seventy-five to a hundred BUSH
chs to the acre. Previous estimates
of the loss have been greatly in
creased by the prospective yield being
found much greater than ever before,
experts telling of many farms that
were good for 100 bushels to the acre
before the flood. The loss is total.
Experience is that if water stays 4S
hours even four inches under the sur
face it kills the corn, and every stalk
wet by waves perishes from rotting
roots. Much of that back from the
channel looks to the casual observer
SIS if it would recover when the flood
subsidies, but a month will see it all
brown and scar.
The chief food thus far Is IN the
Missouri side from Keokuk to Louisi-
ana, with Canton and West Quincy an
centers of the country hurt worst. On
the Illinois side are three continuous
levees for 40 miles from Warsaw to
Quincy above the water and are thus
far safe, but farmers are afraid of
crevasses from muskrat holes and
every rod of the redoubt is watched
day and night. The breaking of these
leeves would flood ITS square miles in
Illinois and destroy s. ,o8O,oo to 3d.
100000 worth of corn. The levees be-
low Quincy are in the same situa-
ton, except that they n lower and
less firm.
Opposite Quincy, in Missouri, is still
another center of special devastation,
which is appalling. North IL miles to
LAGRANGE and south to Horton, large
prairies are well under water reach
ing from the Illinois bluffs to the
Missouri bluffs, at least ten miles.
Levees hastily thrown around farms
have disappeared in a fierce current
rushing from above through the draw
of the Burlington route bridge, carry
ing everything before it.