LITTLE RIVER DRAINAGE DISTRICT MASSIVE UNDERTAKING

Workers' camps like these were scattered around Southeast Missouri's swamps during construction of the Little River drainage project.

There is a reason Southeast Missouri sometimes is referred to as Swampeast Missouri.

The name comes from a massive swamp that once spread from the hills of Southeast Missouri across the Bootheel and into northeastern Arkansas. It was fed by the Mississippi and Ohio rivers and a number of Ozark streams, most notably the Castor and St. Francis rivers.

The Bootheel was loaded with valuable hardwoods and some of the richest agricultural land to be found, but the swamps prevented harvesting the bulk of the timber and allowed only limited farming during the dry seasons. It was inevitable that the swamps be drained.

In 1905, a meeting was held in Cape Girardeau to discuss how to go about draining the Bootheel. At that meeting the groundwork was laid for what would become at the time the world's largest drainage project. The Little River Drainage District was formed in 1907, and the swamp was drained through a massive undertaking that took place in two phases from 1914 to 1928.

When it was finished, more than 1 million cubic yards of earth had been displaced, a greater amount than was moved during construction of the Panama Canal.

The project required the expertise of some of the best engineering minds in the nation. It involved construction of 957.8 miles of ditches and 304.43 miles of levees, the same facilities the district still operates and maintains with assistance since 1931 from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Little River Drainage District is the largest drainage district in the United States. It serves an area some 90 miles in length and varying in width from 10 to 20 miles. Its legal boundaries stretch from Cape Girardeau, where its offices are situated, southward to the Missouri-Arkansas Line. It consists of 54,000 acres, although it drains more than 1.2 million acres.

The district has two parts: a headwater Diversion Channel system at the north end and the main lower district to the south, which has several miles of ditches and levees. The Diversion Channel directs runoff of 1,130 square miles of hill land, which, before the drainage facilities were constructed, often overflowed almost all of the land to the south. The Diversion Channel contains 50.25 miles of channels, 44.73 miles of levees and three water detention basins en route to the Mississippi River between Cape Girardeau and Scott City.

The district to the south provides local drainage for an area of about 750 square miles and furnishes a drainage outlet for an additional 960 square miles.

Total cost of construction was $11.1 million, which was paid by landowners in the district. All of the channels were built by electric and steam draglines, and the smaller ditches through the lower district were built with floating dredge boats.

The district serves parts of seven Missouri counties: Bollinger, Cape Girardeau, Dunklin, New Madrid, Pemiscot, Scott and Stoddard. All of its funding comes from property owners within the district who are assessed annually on the basis of benefits received from the district's functions. About 2,400 landowners own land with the district ranging from one acre to several thousand.

The district operates on about $1 million annually, all of which is derived from landowner taxes. The amount can be no more than $40 an acre. The average assessed benefit is $34 an acre and the average tax $2 an acre.