Grand Kankakee Marsh

Common card · No. 466154

The Grand Kankakee Marsh (or Great Kankakee Marsh or Kankakee Marsh) of northern Indiana and northern Illinois was one of the largest wetlands and freshwater marshes in the contiguous United States, and was frequently referred to as "The Everglades of the North". The marsh was formed by melting glaciers during the Late Pleistocene, approximately 13,000 to 16,000 Years Before Present (YBP). It was the home of Indigenous nations for thousands of years until the Indian Removal Act in the 19th century. The marsh existed within the Kankakee River drainage basin's 5,165 square miles (13,380 km2). Its estimated size ranged between 400,000 acres (160,000 ha) to over 1 million acres (404,686 ha) across 1,600 square miles (4,100 km2), and its main tributary, the Kankakee, was over 240 miles (390 km) long with over 2,000 meander bends. Its flat elevation of 1.3 feet per mile (0.25 m/km) maintained the land wet most of the year. The Kankakee Marsh was a mosaic of marsh, swamp, bog, fen, forest, prairie...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Mitchell, S. Augustus. A new universal atlas containing maps of the various empires, kingdoms, states and republics of the world: with a special map of each of the United States, plans of cities &c.,…, Public domain