When Congress authorized the Kickapoo Valley flood-control project in October of 1962, most people in the Kickapoo Valley and especially in La Farge assumed that construction on the dam and levees would soon begin. After a quarter-century of study and assessment of the Valley and its flooding problems, most felt that the Corps of Engineers crews would soon be in the La Farge area to start construction on the dam, which would be located north of the village. With the Kickapoo River flooding continuing unabated into the 1960’s, Valley residents looked forward with anticipation to the remedies to the constant flooding as outlined in the federal plan. The structural approach of a dam and levees as proposed by the Corps would soon provide relief from the flooding problem. Alas, the immediate construction and implementation of the Kickapoo Project was far from being a reality.
Even before the authorization of the Kickapoo Project in the autumn of 1962, there had been a number of negotiations and correspondence between the Corps and various Wisconsin state agencies. As part of the run-up to the announcement of the project in September of 1962, the Corps had sent the proposal for the Kickapoo Valley to the governor and a number of state agencies in Madison. This was part of the standard protocol for the federal agency when planning these types of projects – to let the state agencies and governor know about the project in advance and seek input on the plan. Remembering that this was the first federal project of this type and scope in the Badger state, when the Corps of Engineers plan for the Kickapoo Valley was sent to the various agency offices in Madison, the initial process was anything but smooth.
The Wisconsin Department of Conservation was the first state office to question the Corps plan for the Kickapoo Valley. In the plan submitted to the state agency, the Corps had called for the development, maintenance and management of the recreational areas around the La Farge impoundment to be carried out by the state’s Conservation Department. Despite earlier correspondence about the Kickapoo Project by the Corps and state conservation department on a number of planning steps and studies, the two departments had not clarified which agency was responsible for the limited recreational areas included in the project. The cost of developing and maintaining the proposed recreational sites was a sensitive to the state conservation agency, since it had earlier begged off on any financial responsibility for the Wildcat Mountain State Park lake proposal. Citing lack of sufficient funding to take on the lake project at Wildcat Mountain, the Conservation Department informed the Corps that it also lacked funds to pay for recreational development for their project at La Farge. Negotiations between the federal and state agencies continued through the summer of 1962 and a compromise was reached. The final Kickapoo Valley plan presented for authorization by the Corps in the fall listed the development of the recreational areas as a federal responsibility, while the state of Wisconsin, through its Conservation Department, would manage and maintain the recreation sites.
Governor Gaylord Nelson also raised concerns about the Kickapoo Project when he first saw it in March of 1962. The Wisconsin governor’s objections were more towards procedure than to content. Apparently, the Corps of Engineers, when first presenting the plan for the Kickapoo Valley to the various state agencies and the governor, had asked for comments on the plan be submitted within a month’s time. Governor Nelson soon sent a letter to the Corps criticizing the short time frame for comment on the plan; a time frame that the governor felt was rushed and ill advised. When the governor’s letter became public, many people in the Kickapoo Valley were concerned that the governor no longer supported the plan. In a number of letters written to various government leaders in the Kickapoo Valley, Governor Nelson assured all that he still favored the plan, but was against the hurried process for approval that the Corps was using. Eventually Nelson signed on to the Kickapoo Project despite his objections to the hurried nature of the process.
Both of those early issues that were raised by Governor Nelson and the Conservation Department showed a certain detachment regarding the state regarding the Corps’ Kickapoo Project. The project was a federal project, administered by a federal agency and paid for with federal dollars. Over the years, the Army Corps of Engineers had developed a certain protocol in dealing with the states where their projects were located. Although it was important for the Corps to get the various state agencies and particularly the governor’s office solidly behind the projects, it was more a formality than a necessity. Most states welcomed the large federal public works projects with open arms. As was the case for flood control in the Kickapoo Valley, these federal projects filled a need and involved a minimum of cost to state and local governments. In reality, the Corps involved the states in the planning process on these projects more as a courtesy. For the Corps of Engineers, the political leaders to please resided in Washington D. C. and not Madison, Wisconsin.
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