The people be dammed: the tale of Tuttle creek.

Abstract

This study focuses on a group of people living in the Blue River Valley of northeast Kansas, and their effort to stop the Tuttle Creek Dam and Reservoir. In this fight to save their homes, farms, businesses, churches, schools, and communities, the people took on the pol itica1 power of the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, the bi g cities downstream, and the many small towns and rural areas affected by flooding . The Blue Valley residents learned to organize themselves to perform various roles to strike back at the pro-dam forces. In particular, the creation of a study association to monitor governmental action on the bi g-dam proposal and the development of women into an active campaign force, made the anti-Tuttle Creek effort a notable grassroots political movement in the heartland of America. This story is the result of interviews of major participants in the fight and their records, documents from several library and archival institutions, and newspaper reports from the ti me. From these accounts the fight of the Blue Valley is reconstructed to show, that though they were defeated on the issue of Tuttle Creek Dam and Reservoir, their argument for watersheds as the most effective means of attaining flood control and conservation of resources, is now the accepted practice.