The Buckeye Trencher
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In 1892, a Bowling Green, Ohio, machine worker invented the Buckeye trencher, a steam-driven machine used to dig ditches along roads and open spaces. As ditches were carved for drainage tiles, mountains of displaced dirt helped build up roads.
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“At first some of the major ditches in this area were dug by hand,” Brown notes. “And as that drainage began to work, agriculture started developing here. That, in conjunction with the internal combustion engine, tractors and other farm machinery, enabled a given family to work larger and larger acreages. But those larger acreages would require a drainage system. The Buckeye trencher is essentially what made life possible in Wood County. Without this equipment, the ditches would have had to be dug by hand.”
Man and machine transformed the swamp. Retired farmer Robert Vonderau, who lives east of Fort Wayne, Ind., traces a timeline. “The canal came through in 1840 just a few miles from here,” he says. “It was used until about 1875. The first train came through in about 1845, and rail travel was well established here by 1860.” Drainage completed the process.
“My farm has been in the same family for 105 years and lies within the Black Swamp,” Robert says. “I have 16 inches of topsoil. With a horse-drawn plow, we would never bring up clay. There are drain tiles buried in the field that will take the water to the river.” The entire farm is flat and very fertile: 2006 crop yields were 90 bushels to the acre for wheat, 210 bushels for corn, and 60 bushels to the acre for soybeans.
Today the Black Swamp is little more than a footnote to history. Gone too are the populations of wolves, bobcats and mountain lions, as well as the disease engendered by standing water and mosquitoes. And in its place, thanks to sheer determination and mechanical ingenuity, highly productive agricultural land. FC
For more information: Wood County Historical Center and Museum, Adam Phillips Park, 13660 County Home Road, Bowling Green, Ohio 43402; (419) 352-0967; e-mail: wchc.asst@wcnet.org; www.woodcountyhistory.org.
Don Voelker is a freelance photographer and writer in Fort Wayne, Ind., specializing in tractors, farm equipment, historic sites, museums, barns and covered bridges. View his work at www.voelkerphotography.com.
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