Kankakee River Photography
The Upper Kankakee - © Becknell and Lucas Media, Ltd.
A fisherman casts at the tail of the old dam at Momence, Illinois, the beginning of the Lower Kankakee. [click on image for a hi-res color version - 160k]
The historic log cabin pictured above is on the banks of the Kankakakee in the charming village of Momence, Illinois, the first real town that the river bisects. Momence marks the dividing line between the two Kankakees - upstream of the Momence "rock or ledge" (mostly in Indiana) water was held back. This barrier helped control the water level in the Grand Marsh. Between 1889 and 1893 the Kankakee Valley Drainage Company blasted a cut "8,649 feet long, 300 feet wide and approximately 2.5 feet deep" between 1889 and 1893. The the drainage of the Grand Marsh had begun in earnest. [source - Navigation Improvements on the Kankakee River Deiss - USACE] There, the upper river is mostly channelized, relatively deep and narrow with a sand or muck bottom. Past Momence, the lower river retains its meanders, is shallower and sometime rocky.
Above, a typical view of the channelized upper Kankakee. Here the river forms the border between Newton and Lake counties in Indiana.
The Kankakee at Lomax, a few miles downstream from the confluence with the Yellow River. The landscape is mostly agricultural, but a well vegetated riparian corridor still exists along with many old oxbows remnants from the original river channel.
Above, the confluence of the Yellow River and Kankakee at "the Point" public access site in the unincorporated community of English Lake, in Starke County. The Yellow River is to the bottom right, the Kankakee to the top right. Several smaller tributary ditches join the Kankakee at the same spot. Before channelization, the Yellow River ran into English Lake near Brems, a few miles to the east.
Below, redbuds bloom on the banks of the upper Kankakee in LaPorte and Starke counties, Indiana, just upstream from the confluence with the Yellow River. Prior to channelization, the river spread broadly to form English Lake in this area; the shallow lake was bordered by vast areas of marsh. Today much of the area of the drained lake is included within the borders of Indiana's Kankakee State Fish and Wildlife Area, and though the river is highway-straight, wildlife abounds. Click on the image for to download a larger version [186k].
