Skip to product information
1 of 1

Minnesota Historical Society Press

The Big Marsh: The Story of a Lost Landscape

The Big Marsh: The Story of a Lost Landscape

Regular price $16.05 USD
Regular price $17.94 USD Sale price $16.05 USD
Sale Sold out
Shipping calculated at checkout.

180 in stock

Under the corn and soybean fields of southern Minnesota lies the memory of vast, age-old wetlands, drained away over the last 130 years in the name of agricultural progress. But not everyone saw wetlands as wasteland. Before 1900, Freeborn County's Big Marsh provided a wealth of resources for the neighboring communities. Families hunted its immense flocks of migrating waterfowl, fished its waters, trapped muskrats and mink, and harvested wood and medicinal plants. As farmland prices rose, however, the value of the land under the water became more attractive to people with capital. While residents fought bitterly, powerful outside investors overrode local opposition and found a way to drain 18,000 acres of wetland at public expense.

Author Cheri Register stumbled upon her great-grandfather's scathing critique of the draining and was intrigued. Following the clues he left, she uncovers the stories of life on the Big Marsh and of the "connivers" who plotted its end: the Minneapolis land developer, his local fixer, an Illinois banker, and the lovelorn local lawyer who did their footwork.

The Big Marsh, an environmental history told from a personal point of view, shows the enduring value of wild places and the importance of the fight to preserve them, both then and now.

Author: Cheri Register
Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society Press
Published: 05/01/2016
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.95lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.90w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9780873519953
View full details