14. “War to the Death on the Illinois Mosquito,” Urbana Courier, Jan. 29, 1917; Ann Vileisis, Discovering the Unknown Landscape: A History of America’s Wetlands (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1997), 82.
15. J. O. Cunningham, History of Champaign County (1905; reprint, Champaign: Champaign County Historical Archives, 1984), 650–51. John T. Cumbler, Northeast and Midwest United States: An Environmental History (Santa Barbara: ABC Clio, 2005); glacier, 2, 133; beavers, 13, 39.
16. Margaret Beattie Bogue, “The Swamp Land Act and Wet Land Utilization in Illinois, 1850–1890,” Agricultural History 25 (Oct. 1951): 169–80.
17. J. M. Peck, New Guide for Emigrants to the West, Containing Sketches of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Michigan, with the Territories of Wisconsin and Arkansas, and the Adjacent Parts (Boston: Gould, Kendall & Lincoln, 1836), 254.
18. Cited in Roger A. Winsor, “Environmental Imagery of the Wet Prairie of East Central Illinois, 1820–1920,” Journal of Historical Geography 13 (Oct. 1987): 375–97.
19. Charles Gleason Elliott, Engineering for Land Drainage, 2nd ed. (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1912), 11.
20. Marion M. Weaver, History of Tile Drainage (in America Prior to 1900) (Waterloo, NY: M. M. Weaver, 1964), 227.
21. Bogue, “The Swamp Land Act and Wet Land Utilization in Illinois,” 178–79; Roger Andrew Winsor, Artificial Drainage of East Central Illinois, 1820–1920 (PhD diss., University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 1975), 175.
22. “Draining,” Illinois Farmer 6 (June 1861): 170–73.
23. H. D. Woodruff, “Draining and Subsoiling,” Illinois Farmer 5 (July 1860): 107–09; Weaver, History of Tile Drainage, 26, 222–27; on English patterns, 58. Quotation and country list from Elliott, Engineering for Land Drainage, 15.
24. Robert W. Frizzell, “Reticent Germans: The East Frisians of Illinois,” Illinois Historical Journal 85 (Autumn 1992): 161–74.
25. Erna Moehl, “A Century of God’s Presence”: A Centennial Tribute, Immanuel Lutheran Church, Flatville, Illinois (Flatville, IL: Immanuel Lutheran Church, 1974), 6–7. On school, J. R. Stewart, ed., A Standard History of Champaign County, Illinois, vol. 2 (Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Co., 1918), 695.
26. “Land Near German Flats Moving Fast,” Urbana Courier, February 2, 1917.
27. Frizzell, “Reticent Germans,” 161–74; on land value, “Good Talk by T. B. Thornburn,” Urbana Courier, Feb. 8, 1917. Faye Emma Corner, “Culture Change in a Low-German Rural Community in Champaign County, Illinois” (master’s thesis, University of Illinois, 1930); Dale Joseph Flinders, “Flatville, Illinois—Area and Community” (master’s thesis, University of Illinois, 1952).
28. Frizzell, “Reticent Germans,” 171.
29. H. W. S. Cleveland, “An Essay on Farm Drainage,” in Transactions of the Department of Agriculture of the State of Illinois, ed. S. D. Fisher, vol. 6 (Springfield: D. W. Lusk, 1878): 221–31.
30. Walter Havighurst, The Heartland: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois (1956; revised, New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1974). See also Bogue, “The Swamp Land Act and Wet Land Utilization in Illinois,” 169.
31. “Reclaimed Lands of Louisiana,” Urbana Courier, Oct. 19, 1909.
32. The farm was in Aurora, Illinois. “Entire Field of Corn Disappears,” Urbana Courier, February 21, 1912. L. O. Howard, Biographical Memoir of Stephen Alfred Forbes, 1844–1930 (Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences, 1932), 3.
33. Henry Trumbull, History of the Discovery of America, of the Landing of our Forefathers, at Plymouth, and of their Most Remarkable Engagements with the Indians, In New-England . . . To Which is Annexed, the Defeat of Generals Braddock, Harmer, & St. Clair, By the Indians at the Westward (Norwich: James Springer, 1812), 140, 144.
34. W. T. Stackpole, “Inland Transportation,” in Transactions of the Department of Agriculture of the State of Illinois with Reports from County Agricultural Boards, for the Year 1873, ed. A. M. Garland, vol. iii (Springfield: State Journal Steam Print, 1874), 155–68.
35. Gretchen Heefner, The Missile Next Door: The Minuteman in the American Heartland (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012).
36. Robert Luther Thompson, Wiring a Continent: The History of the Telegraph Industry in the United States, 1831–1866 (New York: Arno Press, 1972), 263; Cunningham, History of Champaign County, 856–57.
37. Jonathan Silberstein-Loeb, The International Distribution of News: The Associated Press, Press Association, and Reuters, 1848–1947 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 12–13; Menahem Blondheim, News Over the Wires: The Telegraph and the Flow of Public Information in America, 1844–1897 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994), 172, 195.
38. “Wire Report of Day’s Best News,” Urbana Courier, March 18, 1912; “Big British Army in Egypt,” Urbana Courier, Dec. 7, 1914; “Two-Day Battle Is Won by Rebels,” Urbana Courier, Oct. 21, 1911.
39. Robert MacDougall, The People’s Network: The Political Economy of the Telephone in the Gilded Age (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), 29.
40. Cunningham, History of Champaign County, 857.
41. “Poles Are Unsightly,” Urbana Courier, July 13, 1906.
42. “Those Poles Again,” Urbana Courier, Feb. 5, 1908.
43. “Friends and Foes of the Farmer,” Urbana Courier, Jan. 29, 1914.
44. “Colored People Leave Danville,” Urbana Courier, July 28, 1903.
45. “Tree Felled by Wind Set Afire by Wires,” Urbana Courier, May 15, 1916; “Is Nearly Electrocuted,” Urbana Courier, June 5, 1905; “Lineman Meets Instant Death,” Urbana Courier, June 27, 1910; “Storm Brings Death to Two,” Urbana Courier, July 12, 1911; “Fatal Shock for Cow,” Urbana Courier, June 12, 1907; “Risks of Feathered Tribe,” Urbana Courier, Jan. 6, 1904.
46. “May Remove Phones at Tolono,” Urbana Courier, April 21, 1914.
47. “Saved by Wireless,” Urbana Courier, May 28, 1909; “Wireless Meet Opens,” Urbana Courier, June 4, 1912.
48. “Urbana Now Has Wireless Plant,” Urbana Courier, March 9, 1911.
49. “Wireless Telegraph at St. Joseph,” Urbana Courier, Oct. 5, 1911.
50. “Frank Scroggins Has Thrilling Adventure,” Urbana Courier, Sept. 7, 1910.
51. “Falls from Cherry Tree,” Urbana Courier, June 28, 1911.
52. “Radio Club Chosen Officers,” Urbana Courier, May 12, 1915.
53. “Wireless Club Is Organized,” Urbana Courier, June 1, 1916.
54. On inspector, “Amateur Aerial Stations to Be Closed Shortly,” Urbana Courier, April 7, 1917. “Will Wreck Wireless,” Urbana Courier, April 13, 1917. “Scouts Spied Hun Wireless,” Urbana Courier, March 25, 1919.
55. “U.S. Lifts Ban against Amateur Wireless Men,” Urbana Courier, June 27, 1919; “Urbana to Have Wireless Class,” Urbana Courier, Nov. 29, 1919; “Champaign County Radio Association to Reorganize,” Urbana Courier, Oct. 13, 1919.
56. “Via Wireless!” Urbana Courier, March 18, 1914.
57. “Wireless Amateurs Notice!” Urbana Courier, April 16, 1920.
58. “Local Wireless Men Have Chance,” Urbana Courier, March 24, 1917.
59. “University of Illinois,” Urbana Courier, Oct. 20, 1919.
60. “Will Forecast by Wireless,” Urbana Courier, June 23, 1915.
61. “To Have Wireless Exhibit in Floral Hall during Fair,” Urbana Courier, Aug. 12, 1920.
62. “Freaks of Wireless,” Urbana Courier, March 1, 1911; “Astronomical Department Has New Receiving Outfit,” Urbana Courier, Aug. 1, 1914; “Wireless in U.S. and Mexico,” Urbana Courier, Dec. 1, 1916.
63. “Hints for the Radio Operator,” Urbana Courier, Sept. 27, 1917.
64. “Wireless Crosses Pacific,” Urbana Courier, Oct. 6, 1911; “Pick Up Wireless at 11,500 Miles,” Urbana Courier, Jan. 18, 1917.
65. “Urbana Now Has Wireless Plant,” Urba
na Courier, March 9, 1911.
66. “University of Illinois Receives Government Time Signals by Wireless,” Urbana Courier, Aug. 10, 1914.
67. “Radio Club Chosen Officers,” Urbana Courier, May 12, 1915.
68. “Mumford Wins Kite Contest,” Urbana Courier, Nov. 27, 1916.
69. “Settlers Assemble at Park,” Urbana Courier, Oct. 2, 1908.
70. James P. Caird, Prairie Farming in America (London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts, 1859); Britain, 2; ague, 5; extremes, 79, 92. On U.S. meteorological collaboration and the assumption that the British climate was normative, see Jan Golinski, British Weather and the Climate of Enlightenment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 195.
71. Gretchen S. Rauschenberg, Chicago’s “Mr. Rural”: The Life of Matthias Lane Dunlap (Baltimore: Gateway Press, 2007), 39.
72. M. L. Dunlap, “Air Currents,” Transactions of the Illinois State Agricultural Society; With the Proceedings of the County Societies, and Kindred Associations, vol. 1, 1853–1854 (Springfield: Lanphier & Walker, 1855), 524–527. Alfred W. Crosby, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 127.
73. Dunlap, “Air Currents,” 524–27.
74. “Weather Pointers,” Urbana Courier, April 28, 1905.
75. “Signs that Foretell Weather,” Urbana Courier, Jan. 25, 1912.
76. “Birds as Weather Guides,” Urbana Courier, July 29, 1910.
77. “Birds Foretell Weather Change,” Urbana Courier, Oct. 24, 1919.
78. “Weather Pointers,” Urbana Courier, April 28, 1905; “Signs That Foretell Weather,” Urbana Courier, Jan. 25, 1912.
79. “Hits at Popular Illusions,” Chicago Livestock World, March 7, 1905. Katherine Anderson, Predicting the Weather: Victorians and the Science of Meteorology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 42.
80. Irl R. Hicks, cited in “Bad September Storm,” Urbana Courier, Sept. 7, 1907.
81. “Warning Against Fake Forecasters,” Urbana Courier, May 25, 1904.
82. “How to Use a Barometer,” Urbana Courier, Aug. 11, 1909.
83. On deducing weather from laws of physics, see H. Helm Clayton, “Recent Efforts toward the Improvement of Daily Weather Forecasts,” The American Meteorological Journal 9 (July 1892): 128–34. “Hits at Popular Illusions,” Chicago Livestock World, March 7, 1905; “A Weather Scheme,” The Rock Island Argus, April 6, 1906. Anderson, Predicting the Weather, 2, 130.
84. “Wireless to Give Weather Reports,” Urbana Courier, May 25, 1909.
85. “Cold Wave Envelops West,” Urbana Courier, Jan. 7, 1909; “Work of Weather Man Explained,” Urbana Courier, Nov. 20, 1915.
86. “The Northern Illinois Horticulture Society,” Prairie Farmer, Feb. 6, 1875.
87. “A Weather Scheme,” The Rock Island Argus, April 6, 1906.
88. “Foretell Coming Weather,” Bureau County Tribune, July 11, 1913.
89. “Meteorology,” Western Rural, Jan. 21, 1869; “Cold Wave Coming,” Urbana Courier, Jan. 28, 1916.
90. On maps with Canada, see “Weather Forecast,” Chicago Livestock World, May 22, 1915.
91. “Work of Weather Man Explained,” Urbana Courier, Nov. 20, 1915.
92. “Tornado Sweeps Champaign County,” Urbana Courier, July 14, 1917.
93. “Nearly 2,000 Go from Twin Cities,” Urbana Courier, May 28, 1917.
94. “Wind Brings Storm Relic,” Urbana Courier, May 28, 1917; “Nearly 2,000 Go from Twin Cities,” Urbana Courier, May 28, 1917. On tornadoes in Champaign County, see “Storm Works Ruin,” Urbana Courier, July 21, 1907; “Tornado Passes West of Town,” Urbana Courier, May 11, 1914; “Tornado Sweeps Champaign County,” Urbana Courier, July 14, 1917; “Nearby Briefs,” Urbana Courier, June 8, 1904; “Gifford Folks See Tornado,” Urbana Courier, June 6, 1917.
95. “Count 238 Dead and 1,220 Injured,” Urbana Courier, May 28, 1917.
96. “Deadly Tornado in Mauritius,” Urbana Courier, March 27, 1904; “Deadly Russian Tornado,” Urbana Courier, July 1, 1904; on Arizona, “Loss of Life Feared,” Urbana Courier, July 25, 1903; on Manitoba, “Hen’s Egg Size Hail Kills,” Urbana Courier, July 6, 1909; on New Jersey, “Deaths in a Tornado,” Urbana Courier, July 25, 1903; “Ohio Swept by Tornado,” Urbana Courier, July 8, 1915; “Struck by Tornado,” Urbana Courier, Aug. 13, 1907. The Urbana Courier ran over 1,600 stories on tornadoes from 1903 through 1920, with this region, extending to Wisconsin in the north and Arkansas to the south, figuring largely.
97. “300 Are Dead in Twin Equinoctial Storms in West,” Urbana Courier, March 25, 1913. On the Mississippi Valley as their “region of greatest frequency,” see “Defines a Tornado,” Urbana Courier, April 20, 1918. For a British view of the prairies as particularly tornado prone, see H. N. Dickson, Meteorology: The Elements of Weather and Climate (London: Methuen & Co., 1893), 89–91.
98. On Northwest Territory, “As to Unseasonable Weather,” Chicago Livestock World, March 28, 1904; on possessions, “Temperature of the Air,” Monthly Weather Review 18 (March 1890): 65–66; on wave, J. B. Turner, “Climate and Weather,” Prairie Farmer, July 19, 1873.
99. “Dissect Heat Wave,” Urbana Courier, July 29, 1916.
100. “Reason Spring Is Cold,” Urbana Courier, March 6, 1903.
101. “Storm over South,” Urbana Courier, Sept. 28, 1906; “Cold Wave over Mid West Is Breaking,” Urbana Courier, Dec. 10, 1919; “Blizzard Hits Middle West,” Urbana Courier, Dec. 15, 1914; “Blizzard Raging in Northwest,” Urbana Courier, Jan. 26, 1904. On “Bermuda High,” see “Dissect Heat Wave,” Urbana Courier, July 29, 1916.
102. “London Weather,” Urbana Courier, Sept. 21, 1906. On “titanic,” “Storms Cause Disturbances,” Chicago Livestock World, Oct. 23, 1906. On “invasions,” “Heat Toll Big, Many Prostrated,” Urbana Courier, June 28, 1913. On Goths, “The Blizzard,” Urbana Courier, Jan. 13, 1904. On convergence, see “Dissect Heat Wave,” Urbana Courier, July 29, 1916.
103. “Island Is Swept by a Hurricane,” Urbana Courier, Aug. 12, 1903. The article also calls the storm a cyclone.
104. “Hurricane Does Severe Damage,” Urbana Courier, April 26, 1912.
105. “Tornado Plucks Geese,” Urbana Courier, May 26, 1909.
106. “Death List Is Large,” Urbana Courier, Oct. 20, 1906; “Three Towns in Iowa Struck by Cyclones,” Urbana Courier, Aug. 8, 1907.
107. “Hurricane Does Severe Damage,” Urbana Courier, April 26, 1912.
108. “Deaths in Storm,” Urbana Courier, Sept. 22, 1909; “Hurricane in Cuba,” Urbana Courier, Oct. 19, 1906; “Hundreds Die in Hurricane,” Urbana Courier, Sept. 1, 1903; “Town Partly Ruined by Severe Hurricane,” Urbana Courier, Oct. 16, 1906; “Hurricane in Cuba,” Urbana Courier, Oct. 19, 1906; “Hurricane in Philippines,” Urbana Courier, June 6, 1903.
109. “Strange Bird Is Captured,” Urbana Courier, Nov. 18, 1911.
110. “Are We to Miss Cyclone?” Urbana Courier, May 27, 1903.
111. “The Ellison Calamity,” Urbana Union, June 10, 1888.
112. H. P. Curtis, “The Terms Cyclone and Tornado,” American Meteorological Journal 11 (March 1895): 425–26; Gustavus Hinrichs, “Tornadoes and Derechos,” American Meteorological Journal 5 (Oct. 1888): 306–17.
113. “Tornado Differs from Cyclone,” Urbana Courier, June 5, 1917.
114. “Defines a Tornado,” Urbana Courier, April 20, 1918.
115. “Tornado Differs from Cyclone,” Urbana Courier, June 5, 1917.
116. “Defines a Tornado,” Urbana Courier, April 20, 1918; “Tornado Sweeps Champaign County,” Urbana Courier, July 14, 1917.
117. [S. A. Mitchell], Illinois in 1837 (Philadelphia: S. A. Mitchell, 1837): 41.
118. Paul W. Parmalee and Walter E. Klippel, “The Role of Native Animals in the Food Economy of the Historic Kickapoo in Centr
al Illinois,” in Lulu Linear Punctuated: Essays in Honor of George Irving Quimby, ed. Robert C. Dunnell and Donald K. Grayson (Ann Arbor: Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, 1983), 253–324.
119. Robert Ridgway, “Bird Life in Southern Illinois,” Bird-Lore 17 (May–June, 1915): 191–98.
120. Calamink, “The Oldest Club in America—The Audubon Club,” Chicago Field, Sept. 20, 1879, 88–89.
121. T. S. Palmer, Legislation for the Protection of Birds Other than Game Birds (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1902), 88.
122. Geo. H. Brown, “Duck Shooting Along the Mississippi in 1881,” American Field, Aug. 2, 1890, 100.
123. On nearby ponds, see “Duck Hunting Popular,” Urbana Courier, March 12, 1913.
124. “Duck Shooting Is Good This Year,” Urbana Courier, April 2, 1913.
125. On Illinois River, “Friends Feast on Fowls,” Urbana Courier, April 1, 1904; on Mississippi, “One Wholesale Killing,” Urbana Courier, Nov. 16, 1907; on Effingham County, “Late News from Big Four Shops,” Urbana Courier, Oct. 16, 1910; on Indiana, “Big Four Shop News,” Urbana Courier, March 16, 1910; on northwest, “Hunting Season Is Now Open,” Urbana Courier, Sept. 4, 1903; on an Urbana resident’s shoot in the Everglades, see Athos, “Five Weeks’ Shooting in Florida,” American Field, Feb. 8, 1902, 117–18.
126. “Game and Insectivorous Birds,” Prairie Farmer, Oct. 22, 1864, 263; “Duck Shooting Is Good This Year,” Urbana Courier, April 2, 1913.
127. “Birds That Need Special Protection,” American Field, July 5, 1902, 4–5.
128. V. N. R., “Old Shanties Along the Kankakee,” American Field, Feb. 22, 1902, 167–68.
129. Cyrus Thompson, “Passenger Pigeons,” American Field, March 29, 1902, 287.
130. On sparrows, C. Hart Merriam, “Report of Ornithologist and Mammalogist,” Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture, 1886 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1887), 236. “No Protection for Starling,” Urbana Courier, Feb. 1, 1915.
131. “Swat the Sparrow Too,” Urbana Courier, July 19, 1913.
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