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A River's Life, A River's Legacy
reprinted from ontheRock magazine ~ the DOTR founding publication
I am a frequent visitor to the Rock River. I slip in quietly and let my canoe take me past communities of cliff swallows, through gaggles of fuzzy new geese, around ancient oak stumps on which a turtle dawdles. I wonder at how much life this river sustains, at the power it holds, at it's ability to endure though each of us, human and beast, draws from it continually. Sometimes, I close my eyes and imagine the river dammed only by beaver, its' banks rich with prairie forbs and tall grasses, and dotted with Native American
mounds.
It is so quiet. But it is difficult, today, to maintain my vision as the exigencies of life press in; the river, too, struggles as we crowd it with more vigor and intensity than did our predecessors, though they, too, sought the river's sustaining strength. These ancient waters that support our lives today hold the tales, tragedies, and triumphs of those who came before us. I go to the river to listen, and this is what I hear.
Long before native people settled into the lush valley we now call home, torrents of water from a melting glacier deposited debris into a 300-foot gorge to form the bed of the Rock River. As the glacial meltwaters receded, the river slowed to a gentler pace. From a humble beginning in three small branches that converge at Horicon Marsh, the Rock River in Wisconsin now drains 3,460 square miles of valley extending southwestward to Rock Island, Illinois, where it empties into the Mississippi. Rock County claims a portion, beginning in Lake Koshkonong and ending at the Illinois border. Snaking through massive wetlands, shallow lakes, and glacial terrain, the river's form is as varied as the people who settle along it's banks.
At least four Native American tribes were nourished by the river valley's abundance. The wetlands of Lake Koshkonong swelled with rice, and red horse, pike, muskellunge, catfish, and bass thrived in the lake. Bison, deer, elk, otter, mink, turkeys, prairie chickens, and quail also provided food and fur; vast, tall grass prairies dominated the landscape, building layers of rich soil, where tribes planted corn, squash, beans, and melons. Villages and camps were established on bluffs near the water and fertile lowlands, providing good viewing of the surrounding area. Evidence of these Native American mounds, villages, and camp sites have
been found along the river in Rock County from Lake Koshkonong to the Illinois state line: 480 mounds were documented in 1906 on Lake Koshkonong alone, and other mounds are in Milton, Janesville, Indianford, Afton, and Beloit. Unfortunately, many sites have been lost. Nevertheless, evidence of lives sustained by the river remains: pottery make from clay deposited by the glacial waters, and mats and baskets woven from marshland reeds.
Following the Black Hawk War of 1832, government land surveys along the Rock River brought European settlers to the valley. Joseph Tebo, a French fur trader, settled Beloit, originally known as New Albany, in 1832. But Caleb Blodgett is sometimes credited as founding Beloit in 1836, the same year Rock County was officially established and named after the Big Rock in present day Monterey Park in Janesville. Janesville's first settlement is recorded in 1835 and by 1837 the city was declared the county seat. Three settlements, Wisconsin City; Rockport, west of the river; and Jane's Ferry, on the river's east bank, followed. The origin of the river's name is today debated, but most historians agree the name was likely derived from the Native American word "Assinisippi," meaning "stone river," so named because of the rocky bottomed, clear-flowing stream that the Rock River once was.
Naturally shallow portions of the river were forded by Native Americans and settlers in Beloit, Indianford, and Janesville. Ferries were established at the fords in Janesville, near the Big Rock and what is now the Hayes block on Milwaukee Street, and bridges were eventually built near the ferry sites. In 1828, the upriver visits of steamboats such as 'The Gypsy' bolstered hopes of a thriving trade between the river communities as far away as Mississippi, and some envisioned a canal from the Rock River to Lake Michigan-a grandiose plan to connect the Gulf of Mexico with the Great Lakes. However, by 1845 the plan deferred to the more mundane yet profitable system of dams and saw mills.
Early settlers found stands of white and black oak, ash, hickory, cherry, white and black walnut, elm, and maple and, powered by the mighty Rock, saw mills soon converted these trees to lumber for construction. In the 1830s and early 40s a flurry of progress produced mills, homes, schools, and public buildings in both Janesville and Beloit. Limestone quarried from the steep banks near the present day Monterey Bridge was used to build basements, walls, and walkways. In the late 1840s, flour, wool and cotton mills joined flourishing cities; like Jackman's Grist Mill in downtown Janesville, towered four to five stories high. Two dams in Janesville and one in Beloit powered the milling operations, and clay beds along the Rock and it's tributaries in Janesville, Edgerton, Fulton, and Cooksville were mined to produce bricks for the burst of 1840s building; today, Janesville Brick and Tile sits near a red clay bed.
As construction continued, premium building sites dwindled and long undisturbed wetlands were drained, filled and transformed into more housing and factories. Vast swamps and woodlands were once along the river, which regulated runoff of the Rock River basin. Eventually the Army Corps of Engineers were forced, during the Great Depression, to construct river walls in Janesville and Beloit to tame the spring flooding that the wetlands once absorbed.
The draining and filling of swamps adjacent to the river and the deforestation of the river banks have long divided Rock County residents. A further concern is how the wetlands are managed. Today, wetland use is permit controlled by the Federal Army Corp of Engineers, and by the state, county, and city governments. In the past, however, many wetlands, which act as natural water treatment facilities, were drained for agricultural use. Additionally, wetlands are affected by non-wetlands, whose use is not as strictly regulated: irrigation permits are issued permanently, with the provision the DNR can review the permit if it chooses to.
A persistent pollutant that has defied remedy is the carp, a botton-feeding, non-native species popular in Europe as a table fish, but despised by many along the Rock River. Introduced in the 1870s by state hatcheries, the creatures, which can grow to over 30 pounds, cause turbid water and threaten clean-water loving game fish. By the 1920s, carp had become so abundant that residents demanded their removal. So specially built rail cars did, indeed, haul the beast away until the mid 1950s. A hearty creature, whose only natural enemy is low water level, which causes the eggs to dry out, carp today are used as pond fish, made into shoes and belts, processed for pet food, and it's true...eaten by humans. Carp is the most commonly eaten fish worldwide.
With water, of course, come people in search of recreation. Yesterday, they might have brought bamboo fishing poles and inner tubes, but today they bring motor boats and jet skis, and the attendant problem of erosion and pollution. But recreation is an important industry that brings much needed tourist dollars to river front communities. Preservation of natural areas along the river fosters a variety of wildlife, including herons, wood ducks, geese, and other water fowl. Hawks, deer, raccoons, woodchucks, and muskrats are commonly seen, and eagles and vultures are occasional visitors.
And people. It is we who are the recent visitors to this river that has flowed oblivious to us, though we urge it to satisfy and enrich us. Like leeches, we drains its moist marshes so we may swell with homes and factories; like snakes, we encircle it, constricting then releasing its flow, then stealing its power so we may expand ours; like mosquitoes, we nip at its banks, biting its boundaries with our ceaseless activity until we are satiated and it is weakened. We are the visitors with the power to destroy it, but the river remains, perhaps in spite of us. A maze of landowner, conservation, and business concerns manipulate the Rock River's transformation, yet relentlessly, the river flows on, heedless, it seems, of the whims of those who dam, pollute, or drain it.
Alas, it shall outlive us all.
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