Greetings!

Mary and I hope that you and your’s had a Happy Holiday Season. I am beginning this newsletter here on New Years Day. I think New Years Day is a day to look forward to all the great and exciting things ahead of us in this new year. I’m way behind on getting this out, but with the holidays it’s been pretty easy to talk myself out of doing it. I’m sending this newsletter via e-mail. My environmental engineer son likes the idea of paperless communication and I like the cost savings and ability to send attachments and pictures. Of course we will be sending hard copy to those that don’t have e-mail. With this in mind I’ve decided to include others that are not members, but have shown an interest in our project and we’re hoping that eventually we’ll be able to entice them into joining too.

I think its been a “bully” year for the Kankakee Valley Historical Society. Forgive my Teddy Roosevelt expression, but I think its appropriate. At this time I’d like to thank the rest of our officers, Gray and Bev Overmyer. Thanks to Attorney Hugh Martz we are incorporated and are now up to a dozen or so full fledged members and hoping and working so that number will steadily increase. Mary is putting the finishing touches on our 501(c)(3) application and plans on having it in the mail in the next couple of days.

I was very pleased with the turnout at the historical/wildlife picnic held in August. I estimate that around fifty people attended and even with the thunderstorm that rolled through many stayed and continued to take the wagon ride tour. I want to thank Jim Lambert again for supplying us with the chance to enjoy a horse drawn wagon ride. (Pic attached) We plan on continuing to have a picnic every year. That will be one of the subjects on our agenda for our February meeting. Another opportunity that opened up at the Cornelius O’Brian Conference was being able to talk to Congressman Mark E. Souder about our project. With his support we have begun a correspondence with Congressman Peter Visklosky. I have now received a couple of personal letters from Congressman Visklosky and a packet of material on grant applications. His Grants and Projects Director has gone through the different grants and foundations and has sent me info on the ones appropriate for our project. Support like that goes a long way to open doors for us.

One bit of disappointment is learning that Tim Bodeen of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife service has been transferred to the Midway Island Wildlife Refuge. I’m not sure who is replacing him as Project Manager of the Kankakee Wildlife Refuge, but I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough. We want to keep up our association with the FWS and I do want to wish Tim all the best in his new location. This time of year Midway Island sure does sound attractive to me.

Through their time spent at the Valpo Library, Bev and Gary Overmyer have made copies of many of the articles written by A. J. Bowser of the “Vidette-Messenger” after the 1934 reunion of “old timers” at Buams Bridge. I too have to remind myself that our organization is more than restoring the lodge. We must include those that wish to research and teach what happened in the Kankakee River Valley. Another of the uses of the restored lodge building is a place to store, display and teach from. So the lodge is simply a tool to be used by us for our different interests of history and wildlife.

In coming to the end of this newsletter I want to bring up the need for members. Granted we need the membership dues, but I feel that we need the expertise and resources that members can bring to the KVHS and our restoration project just as much. Dana Groves of Historic Landmarks has brought up to me that membership is looked at in consideration for allocation of grant dollars. It makes sense that the powers to be want to see what kind of community support is being giving to a project like ours. For those that aren’t members, please consider joining us in our worthwhile and beneficial endeavors. For those that are members, think of a friend that would fit in and contribute something to help us. Well, give it some thought.

We are having our next Kankakee Valley Historical Society meeting Sunday, February 10, 2002 at the Kouts fire station (108 E. Mentor). The fire station is located two blocks south of the 8 and 49 intersection and then a block east on Mentor. This meeting is important because we will be planning this years agenda, budget and the plan of attack to restore the Hunting Lodge. The meeting is open to the public and we would like to see as many people as possible attend.

Larry Clack from the Valpo Library passed this discovery on to Bev Overmyer and she sent it on to me. This falls under the “if those walls could talk category.”

J. Wesley Johnson is free once more and the authorities of Porter County would like to know where he is, on several accounts. For one thing, they are apprehensive that he will return and execute his threat to get even with the parties he declares jobbed him when he was sentenced to six months as the state penal farm for dynamiting fish. J. Wesley is believed to be a desperate and unscrupulous character, and it would not be at all surprising if, in his present frame of mind, he added murder to hid other misdeeds.

His escape from the penal farm last Tuesday night, after serving less than a month of his sentence shows evidence of a plan to engaged in some unholy enterprise, and it is recalled that at the time of his trial and sentence he made threats of reprisal On the officials and others concerned in his prosecution. The career of J. Wesley Johnson following his arrival at Baum’s Bridge from Columbia City about half a year ago is what a regular paper would describe as meteoric. He was an almost perpetual turmoil. His mother bought the old Donley resort, but before the license could be transferred she died, A family quarrel over her deathbed landed J. Wesley in jail. When he got out his father drove him off the place with a gun. There was a reconciliation before the fish dynamiting episode. One time he attached his mother's name to a large check and came near being prosecuted on a charge of forgery.