Before they were destroyed, Beaver Lake was the largest lake in Indiana, and the Kankakee Marsh was nearly half a million acres of wetland. This was one of the major inland marshes in the country before landowners drained it for farmland. Changing Landscapes of Northwest Indiana examines the massive ecological devastation caused by the destruction of Beaver Lake, the channelization of the Kankakee River, and the draining of the Kankakee Marsh. The book traces early efforts to drain the marsh, leading to the successful completion of the project in the twentieth century, and covers the problems that still exist today. The consequences were immense and extended beyond the struggle by conservationists to restore or preserve portions of the marsh. The loss of the marsh fostered a century of flooding in the Kankakee Valley and caused decades of conflict with Illinois, which shares the Kankakee River with Indiana. To this day there are ongoing attempts to manage flooding on the river, and residents of Illinois continue to claim that channelization caused severe environmental problems in their state. Serious and lasting environmental problems have proved intractable. The citizens of Indiana―and their government―made profound and irreversible choices about managing a vast wetland and a river within the state’s borders. The story of the conversion of the Kankakee Marsh to farmland is an object lesson in the manifold problems that arise from the imperatives of unrestrained environmental exploitation. "The history of the American Midwest is a history of drainage. In Changing Landscapes of Northwest Indiana , Michael Dobberstein recovers one of those stories. Along the way, he shows readers how water, marshes, and the efforts to control them connect to larger histories of settler colonialism, American capitalism, and the conservation movement." — Camden Burd , assistant professor of history, Clemson University "While most books are concerned with the polluting of the urban Midwest in the late nineteenth century by industrialization, Changing Landscapes of Northwest Indiana examines the environmental despoliation caused by land grabs for farmland development in that region's rural areas. Dobberstein tells the story of settlers to the Midwest who not only eliminated the wetlands but changed the course of the Kankakee River, creating environmental havoc in two states—Indiana and Illinois. The author's occasional remarks concerning the destruction of the original wetland's natural beauty add a poignant and sometimes angry note to the well-researched story." — Carolyn R. Boiarsky , author of Lead Babies and Poisoned Housing: Environmental Injustice, Systemic Racism, and Governmental Failure "This is an insightful and captivating story of the politics of land and water in the Midwest. It is a valuable addition to the environmental history of Indiana and the nation." — Kathleen A. Tobin , professor of history, Purdue University Northwest Michael Dobberstein is a retired associate professor of English at Purdue University Northwest. His teaching and research interests were in art and poetry. He became interested in environmental history, with a special focus on the wetlands of Northwest Indiana, as a volunteer for the Nature Conservancy’s restoration project at Kankakee Sands, located on the basin of Beaver Lake. He has published articles on draining these wetlands and continues to research and speak to local groups about conservation.