Indiana's Wabash River reaches from its Ohio River junction in the southwest to the city limits of Fort Wayne in the northeast where it ends at the continental divide between the Gulf of Mexico and the Great Lakes/Atlantic Ocean drainage via the Maumee River. In the 1830s, the river and adjoining channels were excavated to create the Wabash-Erie canal, enabling barge transit from the Ohio to Lake Erie, after a channel at Fort Wayne. By the early 1840's, the cost of the canal had bankrupted Indiana and produced its Constitutional amendment prohibiting state indebtedness, which stands to this day. But about every 10 years, the canal arises again like the Phoenix bird from its own ashes; and the Corps of Engineers again wastes a few million dollars in "feasibility studies" for digging a new one. The mid-i 960s was the most recent major political attempt to resurrect the canal-this time with routes to both Lake Michigan and Lake Erie. The Wabash has dozens of tributaries along its route, some of which are the crown jewels of Indiana's streams. The Indiana lzaak Walton League led the campaign to junk this plan, which had been supported by a few notorious Congressional pork barrelers, chambers of commerce, coal shipping interests and other bulk commodities. But ironically, one of the big tonnage products the barges had moved in during its short heyday were steel rails-laid down in the form of railroads, which could move bulk commodities like coal and grain much more efficiently than could the barges. The Indiana Ikes enlisted the railroads in the campaign opposing the barge canal resurrection-a big-time ally, whose economic interests would be adversely affected by what amounted to a publicly subsidized competitor for bulk cargoes. The tributaries of the Wabash were a special attraction, because the Corps needed to demonstrate a long enough navigation season to generate revenues to offset construction costs. Without additional water supplies, and without being able to regulate flood waters, that demonstration could not be made. The League noted during this period that a dozen or more impoundments were being proposed by the Corps on these tributary streams- though there was never any admitted connection between them and the barge canal. They were for "flood control", recreation, drinking water supply and the usual claims advanced by the Corps of Engineers -until the League recognized and exposed their REAL purpose, as STORAGE TANKS for navigation water releases to the barge canal! That purpose would extend the navigation season, and would also protect the barge canal from flood waters. The barge canal sunk like a stone. One of the sacrifice streams in the Wabash Basin would have been Big Walnut Creek, 35 miles west of Indianapolis. It was said to be for flood control to protect the town of Greencastle; but League members became aware of the proposed project almost too late. Ecologists and other biological scientists close to the League joined in studies of the Big Walnut valley that would be inundated by the Corps' impoundment. They found it to be one of the most significant natural areas remaining in Indiana; and the battle was joined. This was one "storage tank" the Corps would not be allowed to build. It contained the largest eastern hemlock trees in the state, the most extensive colony of Canada yew, and the second largest sugar maple tree in the United States. The Corps also had another problem: they could not come up with a favorable benefit to cost ratio until they added in the "benefit" of drinking water supply for Indianapolis... 35 miles and a river basin watershed away. That and the extraordinary natural quality of the creek and valley sunk the project. Today, the upper Big Walnut Creek valley is a dedicated state Nature Preserve and a National Natural Landmark - and nobody talks any more about damming the stream. And Greencastle is still where it always was, high and dry. There were a number of other Corps damming projects during this period that the League helped to sink. One of them was Wildcat Creek, which was scheduled to become Lafayette lake downstream near the city of that name. Behind the leadership of the Wildcat Creek Federation, the Indiana Ikes helped to junk that "storage tank", and today, the Wildcat is one of only three streams in Indiana designated in the state's natural, scenic and recreational rivers system. One of the early efforts of the Indiana Division was a fund-raising effort in the 1950s to acquire suitable habitat in the state's northwestern area for a species of prairie chicken threatened with extinction. The original habitat had largely been destroyed by farming, development and drainage. This effort was led by the late L.H. Dunten, as in the case of the National Elk Refuge in Wyoming. But it was too little too late, and the bird specie disappeared from the Indiana landscape - though it persisted in Illinois, and may still be present there. Approximately 85 parcels of land have been acquired over a number of years by northwestern Indiana League chapters, mainly Griffith, mainly wetland, and mostly through tax sales, but also occasionally for roadside parks. Some tracts along the Kankakee River will likely become part of the proposed Grand Kankakee Marsh National Wildlife Refuge

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