Century-old engineering marvel revisited at Cape Girardeau Chamber's First Friday Coffee

Attendees at Friday, Feb. 3's Cape Girardeau Area Chamber of Commerce First Friday Coffee braved frigid temperatures to step back in time to hear about a vital period in Southeast Missouri history.

W. Dustin Boatwright,Little River Drainage District executive vice president

W. Dustin Boatwright,Little River Drainage District executive vice president

In remarks titled "Flood Control and Drainage", W. Dustin Boatwright, executive vice president of Cape Girardeau-headquartered Little River Drainage District, described for a crowd gathered at Century Casino Event Center the district's historic impact.

"[The district] runs from south of Cape Girardeau down to the Arkansas line," said Boatwright, a third-generation district employee whose father and grandfather were dragline operators on the project.

"That area makes up about 5% of Missouri and is responsible for about 30% of the commodities of the state — just to give a snapshot of how successful this project has been."

Boatwright said the project was built between 1914 and 1928, transforming what was colloquially referred to as "Swampeast Missouri" into some of the richest and most productive agricultural land in the nation.

"What these folks did 100 years back in the time frame in which they did it would be very difficult to do today," he said, adding the total $9.3 million price tag of a century ago would likely cost $180 million to $200 million today.

Little River Drainage District is made up of parts of seven Missouri counties: Cape Girardeau, Bollinger, Stoddard, Dunklin, Scott, New Madrid and Pemiscot, with 1,000 miles of ditches and 300 miles of levees.

"In terms of reliability and productivity, agriculture-wise, this area is a mecca and is as good as it gets," Boatwright said.

Historian input

Frank Nickell of Cape Girardeau's Kellerman Foundation, in a previous article for the Southeast Missourian, said if the district didn't exist and if the project's ditches were not maintained today, "most of the area would revert back to a swamp."

Land that was at one time covered 95% in water and trees now is largely cleared, creating some of the more fertile and tillable U.S. land to be found anywhere, the historian added.

Those so inclined may get a glimpse of what the region looked like before Little River Drainage District by visiting 15,000-acre Mingo National Wildlife refuge near Puxico, Missouri, Nickell said.