Still high and dry after all these years ....

I'm reading reports --- and watching video --- this morning in the aftermath of severe flooding that hit the greater Des Moines area overnight following torrential rain. At least one man was swept away, and died.

And sitting here high and dry on a Chariton hilltop, feeling grateful once again to the locating commissioners who back in September of 1849 picked a spot for the county seat that is beyond the reach of flood waters. That doesn't mean minor flooding doesn't occur when rain falls faster than it can drain away, but rising water is not a threat.

James G. Robinson, one of Lucas County's founding county commissioners, told the story of the locating process, driving a stake to mark the spot, in an 1899 letter --- in part as follows:

"The legislature had appointed three commissioners to locate the county seat, Wareham G. Clark of Monroe county, Pardon M. Dodge of Appanoose county, and a Mr. Fisher of Wapello. They came on in September (of 1849); was the county two or three weeks.

"I received word from Mr. Clark stating the day they would determine where to drive the stake and wishing the commissioners to meet them. I went to Chariton Point and was told the men were out on the prairie northwest. I went to the corner of sections 19, 20, 29 and 30 and there I found five men and two boys with handkerchiefs spread down on the grass, with a deck of cards. They had drunk one jug of whisky and was putting a boy on a horse to go for another. They told us at that section corner the committee had determined to drive the stake. That afternoon they did so ...."

Weather by chance or design, those commissioners had picked a spot near the crest of the great ridge that in this part of southern Iowa divides the Mississippi and Missouri river drainages. Which is why, according to Lucas County lore, water that drains from the north slope of the courthouse roof --- and the courthouse is located just to the northeast of that 1849 stake --- flows into the Mississippi River and water that drains from the south slope, into the Missouri.

Admittedly, if that actually were ever the case, modern drainage technology most likely has disrupted the flow a little. But still, water that falls in my neighborhood flows south into the Chariton River, then via the Chariton to the Missouri. Water that falls northeast of the courthouse flows into Little White Breast, then White Breast, then the Des Moines and finally into the Mississippi.

So here's a toast (in coffee, considering the hour) to Wareham G. Clark, Pardon M. Dodge and Mr. Fisher.