Peace on the Grasshopper River

By Golden Becker

Written by Mr. Golden Becker at the time that Perry Dam was built: he remembered the Delaware River Valley as it used to be. We think this essay will be of interest to our new residents, who want to see the “before the lake” picture, and understand the attitude of the old timers. (The editor, Yesteryears, October 1989.)

In my boyhood days some seventy years ago, the Grasshopper valley was a peaceful valley. Wild life was permitted to roam the hills and valley, only enough was taken by man for his needs. I fished and hunted the valley from hillside to hillside and when water was to a trickle in the river. We thought of it as our river and it was a member of the family from Grandpa down to his grandchildren, and life was reasonably comfortable.

Designed and published by the Kansas
Department of Transportation. —
Kansas 2005–2006 Official Transportation Map.

There was the town of Thompsonville where Perry Dam is now built. It was named after a Mr. Thompson who had a grist mill with water power from a dam on the Grasshopper river. Flour and cornmeal were ground there. Up the river about three miles was Wolftown, a grocery store and blacksmith shop owned and run by Lawn Wolf. Next up the river four miles was Jacksonville, started by a Mr. Jackson who also had a grocery store and blacksmith shop. This was just three miles from where I was born. At Jacksonville there was a bridge across the Grasshopper which was dismantled when the river was straightened in 1908 and moved to the new channel. This bridge has now been taken out and moved for the Perry Lake. 

Next up the river was the town of Ozawkie. It was the county seat of Jefferson County.* A thriving town with a number of businesses, grocery store, pool hall, hardware store, feed store and grist mill also run by the water power with the limestone burrs for the grinding of flour and cornmeal. Water power was from a dam across the Grasshopper. The town of Ozawkie has been completely razed. A new town of Ozawkie has been built on the high hills west of the old town. Next was Grasshopper Falls named after Rock Falls in the river and now called Valley Falls. This town now remains a thriving small town and will be about the upper end of Perry Lake. The Grasshopper River was later named the Delaware River. This river is now destroyed from Valley Falls to Thompsonville for the Perry Lake. This is where I spent my early life — fishing, hunting and trapping. I trapped muskrat, mink, coon, opossum, coyote and skunk.

I can remember small trees that were permitted to grow to large ones three and four feet through and large ones that we pitched our tents under. The trees that we played squirrel in, the muddy banks that we went barefooted on, leaves we gathered to make a bed, and willow poles that we fished with a line tied on. We caught lots of fish — carp, buffalo, catfish, turtles and eels. We ate them all, did not waste a thing —if we caught it we ate it. Wild deer roamed the valley, wild ducks were by the millions and many prairie chickens. Wild life abounded everywhere.

Soon the valley will be under water and my playground will be gone. The very trees that I played squirrel in and slept under are all gone. To me it is a desolate sight and I cannot call it progress. Engineers are building sightseeing roads and destroying nature — all that God has erected. It is a barren land now to be covered with water. They say for flood control. I have seen this valley covered with water from bluff to bluff many times and have rowed a boat from hillside to hillside. I saw it in 1903, 1908, 1915, 1935, and 1951. This new water will not be new to me. I believe that someday the valley will be flooded again, not where all this destruction is taking place but down stream and the whole valley laid to destruction. History says it happened in 1844 and it could happen again. Earthen dams have been known to break.

Upwards of fifty million dollars of our tax money is being spent. Farmers’ boyhood homes have been unhappily destroyed and they have been forced to move elsewhere, and in some cases death has occurred as a result of the power and the forcefulness of our federal government.

Lakes do fill up and someday become mud puddles. In Japan a lake of about 1200 acres that became a mud hole is now being made into farm land. The levee was leveled, and the land is being divided up in small tracts. Farmers have moved on the land to raise food for the much needed explosive population, which we are now having in our United States too. Flood control, as it is called, is for the farms and cities down stream, and not the ones upstream.

I knew the people from Thompsonville to Ozawkie, the old grist mill at Ozawkie where flour and corn meal was made, fished there many times — also at Thompsonville. Farmers who lived in that valley were Grimes, Thompsons, Markers, Meyers, Gibiers, Saylors, Starks, Wolfs, Selfs, Bakers, Metzgers, Richters, Breys, Fowlers and the Henry Plows. They all owned farms in the valley. Many years, year after year, we threshed wheat and oats for them and ate a thresherman’s dinner at their tables and fished on their farms. I have rowed a boat over their farms when the river was out of its banks, gigged and caught lots of fish and gave these people the fish we caught. I have helped them in their harvest, helped to haul their flooded wheat to high ground and we received no pay for this act of mercy.

The Beckers and these people were all workers. They worked from sunup to sundown. Many times we went to the Grasshopper with wagon loaded with tent, hay and corn for the horses, and a wooden box with minnows seined from Duck Branch. We pitched our tent and usually stayed two nights. These farmers came to our camp, some drank beer and played cards and were welcome to a mess of fish. We caught lots of fish and either ate them or gave them away. Everyone was welcome at our camp.

The Grasshopper/Delaware Valley lies beneath the lake.
Aerial view of the dam at Perry Lake, Kansas.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

In our present world there is respect for thy neighbor as long as he stays off the other fellow’s property, but let him get on your property and immediately you are disturbed. This is true on a national basis, country by country, nation by nation, and it is happening all over the world. It was not so seventy years ago.

In these days of division and dissent there is a challenge to all responsible citizens. For beneath the issues that drive us apart lie the ideals, the enduring values created by God that can bring us together.

* Ozawkie was the first county seat in Kansas Territorial days. After several elections, the vote placed the county seat at Oskaloosa. The records were removed by force from “Osawkee.” That formed a story line for a ’50s movie, “The Second Greatest Sex,” starring Jeanne Crain. ("The Second Greatest Sex" is also available on YouTube.) Parts of it were filmed in the old town of Ozawkie.

This article appeared in "Yesteryears" in October 1989. Construction of Perry Dam began in August 1964. The lake was filled by 1969 and dedicated in 1970.