As I grew up I was aware of the river's "flood stage," but only as a matter of interest, not survival. The Riehl farm had about 25 acres of tillable "overflow ground", as well as several acres of softwood timber. We got our corn from the tillable land. This was not free. There were times when the water came up and halted the planting process after the ground had been plowed.

Sometimes the water receded so late that we could not depend on the usual varieties of "hundred and twenty day corn" which produced the best yield. There was the "90 day" variety but it did not produce nearly the yield that the longer maturity varieties did. I remember such a year in 1934, when our neighbor, Ed Maupin, was farming our bottom ground on the share. He gambled, and planted the hundred and twenty day variety.

He won. We had a late frost that year, the thirtieth of October. The corn matured and hardened so that it could be cribbed without the danger of it "heating" as it would have done had it not been properly matured.

One year the water receded too late for even the ninety day variety. My Grandfather bought several pounds of turnip seed, put on his hip boots, and broadcast the seed on the mud left by the receding waters. That fall he supplied the surrounding neighborhoods with turnips. Ten cents for a gunny sack full, or a dollar for a wagon load. The story was still a neighborhood legend during my growing up years.

The water also came up in the fall, sometimes, although this was not the usual. One year they had the corn cut and stored in shocks, still left in the field. This was a common practice, and it had advantages. Corn fodder is not the most nutritious food, but it will "beat snowballs" as one of our hired men used to say. How true! Also, when left on the stalk, if the ears are not harvested in a timely manner, the squirrels often harvest a good deal of it for their own benefit.

So, one fall, the corn was in the shock. Water came up so quickly that there was not time to rescue the shocked corn and haul to higher ground. Someone else saw the opportunity and used a boat to raid the nicely stored shock corn.

It was often the practice for the men to cut wood in the winter time and not haul lit out immediately. They learned the fallacy of this practice. An entry in Grandpa's day books: "River rose, and flowed off some of my stove wood."

Cord wood was often sold. Some times it was hauled into town by land transportation, but there are entries in the day books: "Banked cordwood for the [family name] at $2.50 per cord. (A cord of wood is four feet high and eight feet long, made up of wood cut in four foot lengths.)

The H. K. Johnson Hardware Store, on the north-east corner of Broadway and State Street had marks on its building of the various heights of river water in the floods that had taken place during the recorded history of them in this area. This was always a source of great interest to me when I was growing up. If I was missed during our trips to town I could usually be found right there.

Another interesting happening caused by the floods was the people on Scotch Jimmie's Island, just across from our farm. Legend has it that James Powrie was granted a forty acre homestead there for his service in the Civil War. I have never found a way to either prove or disprove this. The day books are full of references to dealings with Mister Powrie. One time I found a reference in an old newspaper article that said my Uncle Ed Riehl had played for a dance in the house there on the island. There was no date. The Powrie girls went to Randolph School with my mother and my aunts and uncles. When the river was impassable during the worst of the winter they stayed at the Lock home.

This dam had been loudly touted as the last thing needed for flood control.

I remember asking: "What are you going to do with the extra water coming down stream? Pump it out over the top?"

"No, it will never happen," was the answer.

In 1973 it did happen.

The water got high enough that my friend and neighbor, Duke Cummines took me with him to raise a trammel net on Stanka Lane in front of his house. We went over the guard rails of the Great River Road in his little boat, and did not touch them.

The water did get in under the floors of the O'Flaherty house and do some damage, but did not actually get into the living quarters.

EVERGREEN HEIGHTS LAYOUT: The Hilltop & Bottom Lands...and the Field Roads

HILLTOP

A lesson in the topography of our property would be helpful in understanding how these changes in river levels affected us and the community.

The Riehl farm at that time consisted of a hundred and fifty four acres. The original farm house (the Big Brown House) that E. A. Riehl built is located on top of the river bluffs, probably two hundred feet above the river level.

On the East side of the Big Brown House there's a small white cottage.

EAST BOTTOM

The East line of the property coincides with the East line of Jersey County. This area was always referred to as "The East Bottom."

The East Bottom had never been flooded except perhaps in 1903. I never could get a truly accurate reading on that on a local basis. In 1993 it was flooded at least half.

There was a little "field road" to it from our house on the hill. This was used also by neighbors needing to catch the steamboat at "Riehl's Landing" or in later years the train at "Riehl's Station."

WEST BOTTOM

On the other end of the property was the "West Bottom."

The West Bottom was bounded on the West by Piasa Creek. There were probably twenty-five acres of overflow ground, tillable when it was not under water of muddy from the receding waters. The West Bottom also had several acres of softwood timber which was also overflowed.

SECOND BOTTOM

Then there was the "Second Bottom" which meant that it was low ground, but not overflow ground (until 1993). To access this land from our home there was also a "field road" which was used by the person who was farming the Lock property on the east side of Piasa Creek, and occasionally by the people who lived at Lock Haven on the other side of the creek. It was a private road, never opened for public use.

In the 1973 flood the tenants who were living in mobile homes in our West Bottom got together and put crushed rock on this field road so that they could have a better access to their homes during the high water. This road, called "The Old Gate Road" in our famly," was also used by some of the people on the other side of the creek.

In 1993 the State of Illinois came in and improved it more, along with many loads of crushed rock. It became almost a highway, with people from all over that back country using it.
People came from their homes by boat to where the road went under water there in the West Bottom, and then retrieved their cars and proceeded on to their destination.

Some people parked on top of the hill. I can't count the cars that I pulled out of the mud because there was no provisions made for parking on a hard surface.

In 1993 we had what they called the "five hundred year flood."

SANDBAGGING

We tried sand bagging, there in the East Bottom, and it worked for awhile. But there are problems with sand bagging that are not clearly seen at first glance.

1) The water gets in behind the sand bagged bulwark.
2) Some of the water seeps in through the sand bags, but a lot of it comes in through the ground.
3) The same septic system that allows the waste to seep into the ground allows the river water to seep in behind the sand bagged area.

PUMPS

We used pumps.

We might have made it, but we were using electric pumps and there was a 24 hour power outage. We lost.

FIXING THE HOUSES AFTER THE WATER WENT DOWN

We owned three houses at that time threatened by the flood: 4200 Stanka Lane, #7 Gibbens, and #10 West Bluffline. I used our boat and rescued the water heaters and furnaces from all three houses.

When the water receded, we went back in and rehabilitated the dwellings. This was mostly work. There had been probably three feet of water in each of them.

The Government furnished a "dump" where the trash could be deposited, up by Grafton. This was a big help.

I got my three dwellings done in a couple of months, at a cost of around a thousand dollars for materials for the three of them. I had very little help except for a young man who had been displaced over across the creek who helped me with #7 Gibbens.

And so, the five hundred year flood of 1993 became history.