News

Records Illustrate Soil Conservation Efforts in Iowa

14-Oct-2009

The Special Collections Department holds the papers of Wallis R. Tonsfeldt, an Iowa soil conservationist, which document the Little Sioux River Basin Watershed and Flood Prevention Project. The finding aid for this collection was recently put online: http://www.lib.iastate.edu/spcl/manuscripts/MS558.html

This collection is one of several in the Special Collections department which document soil conservation and flood prevention efforts in the state of Iowa and the nation. The need for conservation efforts became especially evident after the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s. The drought of the 1930s was made even worse from soil erosion caused, in part, by increased crop productivity made possible by the use of machines in agriculture and the pressure on farmers to increase production during World War I. The Little Sioux River Basin Watershed and Flood Prevention Project was one of eleven watersheds authorized in 1946.

The Little Sioux Watershed encompasses fifteen counties of northwestern Iowa which contain farmland with very fertile, but fragile, loess soil and numerous hills. Sheet erosion, gulley erosion, sedimentation and flooding were major problems in the area. In addition, during World War I the steep areas of the watershed had been plowed to increase production, furthering erosion and gully development. The erosion was damaging crops, farmland, waterways, roadways and buildings. Since the 1940s, the United States Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service (previously the Soil Conservation Service) has overseen the flood prevention program and the federal government continues to assist farmers in land treatment measures to reduce runoff and erosion in the area.

The Wallis R. Tonsfeldt Papers contain conservation plans, correspondence, project reports, policies and procedures, damage reports, work and design plans, treatment plans, criteria for watershed treatment, financial information, meeting minutes, photographs, reports and various data and statistics gathered on the watershed and its subwatersheds. Most of the collection consists of materials on specific projects, studies, plans, costs and work performed. The photographs and their descriptions depict specific erosion problems and actions taken in a particular area not often found in the other documents of the collection.

For related collections, see the Little Sioux Watershed Records (MS 106), Alden J. Erskine Papers (MS 85), George and Sewell Allen Papers (MS 81), and John D. Beardsley Papers (MS 79). The Special Collections Department at Iowa State University also holds a number of collections related to soil conservation such as the Iowa Soil Conservation Districts Records (MS 185), the National Association of Conservation Districts Records (MS 460), and the Hugh Hammond Bennett Papers (MS 164).

For more information concerning resources and services in the Special Collections Department, see the Department's web page at http://www.lib.iastate.edu/spcl/index.html, or contact Department staff at (515) 294-6672 or by e-mail at archives@iastate.edu.

Hugh Bennett, chief of the Soil Conservation Service, at the construction site of a drop inlet structure in the Theobold watershed (August 20, 1948).

Gully caused by an eight inch rain on June 17, 1951 five miles southwest of Mapleton, Iowa.