After being here over a year, I stumbled upon a fantastic local story. If I was into producing a screenplay based on history, this is one I’d jump on. It has a ginormous monster. A real one. Weighing in at around 37 million tons. Not pounds… tons. Thirty seven million tons. Able to devastate cities and the regional economies. Godzilla would only weigh 164,000 tons. So… 225 Godzillas. Released upon the town of Grand Haven. A fate almost completely assured. All hope lost. Except, it had a hero. A man who would not give up. Even as the other would-be heroes finally fled… accepting inevitable doom. And plenty of human drama as events unfolded over many days. Human failings. Cowardice. Selfishness. Corruption. But plenty of heroes. Even if they did succumb to hopelessness while one man and his small crew stayed. Standing strong against all odds as the monster roared. And they won. An American success story of ingenuity and bravery. I’m surprised their story is not memorialized in film.
It all started with water. Lots and lots of storm fed water on the Grand River in the summer of 1883. But the monster was not the rain. It was the logs. The area was still a lumber economy. Logs were stored along the river, held back by booms. Until freed by rising floodwaters. Rushing down the river until the logjams began to occur.
How many logs? Enough that if you laid each log end to end, they would encircle the entire earth, and then another 3,000 miles.
Moving downstream, it took out bridges along the way. When the logs jammed, water rapidly built up behind. Logs under so much pressure they would fly high up in the air like a slick watermelon seed would pop across the room when you squeezed it between your fingers.
In 1883, engineers worked quickly with the tools they had. Channels were dug in days with dredges, diverting upstream waters into a brand new riverbed. Steam powered pile driving ships pounded new paths for the logs, spreading them over open water flooded fields.
But further upstream in Grand Rapids, the logs kept piling up, and the waters behind them. Held back by an iron railroad bridge. If suddenly freed, they would sweep thru Grand Haven and Spring Lake… and then out into Lake Michigan. Devastating the area, creating a long lasting threat to navigation… and the collapse of businesses (logging, furniture making, shipping, banks, etc) from the loss of 150 million board feet of wood.
The men around Grand Haven kept fighting. Pile driving ships continuing their efforts. But when word came that the Grand Rapids iron bridge had failed, and the logs were on their way down river, hope was lost. Efforts were abandoned… except for pile driver #4 led by John Walsh. They continued their efforts to divert the logs in a massive bayou. Against all odds, facing death in the shadow of the monster, over many additional hours, they succeeded. The work of retrieving and milling the logs continued all summer, but disaster was averted.
http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/lgjam.Html
