This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.
Had the Illinois Department of Transportation been better historians, they never would have tangled with the women of Meredosia. In the past, women with a plan have stopped wars and brought down dictatorships, so the good old boys at the state capitol were easy pickings.
Meredosia was the name for a lowlands of rich soil north of here, from the head of the Rock Island Rapids east toward the Illinois River—the ancient channel of the Mississippi River before glaciers pushed it past Rock Island. During high water in the 19th century, small steamboats could shortcut across these bottoms to central Illinois, but then, farmers moved in, protected from the Mississippi by a levee which became the roadbed for Route 84, the principle road on the east side of the river.
During the great record flood of 1965, the Mississippi rose so high that it breached this levee, sending water across thousands of acres of Meredosia farmland. The highway department quickly repaired the break in the highway, but that left the water flooding the fields with nowhere to drain when the flood subsided.
Farmers begged the highway department to open the levee so the water could drain back out. "Rules is rules," the department responded, and refused.
At that point, the farm wives decided to help out. Fifty or so of them formed a bucket brigade from the flooded fields across Route 84 to the Mississippi, and began dipping the water out, passing it across, and emptying it in the river. Traffic on Route 84 was halted while the women worked. Cars would have to wait until they were through. At two gallons a bucket, a bucket every ten seconds or so, they estimated that they would be through sometime late in late 1997.
Naturally, some waiting cars shut off their engines. At that point, the Department of Transportation thought of a way of helping out. Why not cut through the road and the levee and drain the water from the fields, and then repair the road again?
And so, they did. Too bad the women couldn't have thought of that themselves.
Rock Island Lines with Roald Tweet is underwritten by Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois.
