Includes bibliographical references.

Part I: The Lay of the Land -- Hollandale : An Introduction -- Freeborn County : Home, but No Biome -- Looking for the Big Marsh -- Part II: Life on the Big Marsh -- No Empty Landscape -- The Grid That Turned Land to a Commodity -- Homing on the Marsh : The Speers -- The Trip from Otranto Revisited -- Claiming the High Ground : The Ostranders -- Hazards -- What Counts as a Lake? -- The Evolution of the Drainage Ditch -- A Watershed Year : 1877 -- A New Home on the Prairie : A Speculation -- Fire on the Marsh -- Part III: The Big Ditch -- The Alleged Conniver : Putnam Dana McMillan -- The First Drainage -- The Middle Man : William A. Morin -- Robert Speer Travels through Time -- Eighteen Yoke of Oxen -- "The Great Ricelawn Ranch" -- A Change of Hands Bodes a Change of Lands -- What's Black and White and Grazes All Over? -- The Second Try -- New Man About Town : John Felix Dryden Meighen -- The People Protest -- How to Read a Flying Bundle of Twine -- A Lone Voice for the Environment : Fred McCall -- Counterarguments -- The Moscow Farm Prospers -- Meighen in Court and Courting -- The Winning Strategy -- Rice Lake and the Big Marsh Go Down the Drain -- The Swamp Angel Plays Cupid -- The New Model Farmer -- The Victor's History -- The Mysterious Fall of Bryant Barber and Other Endings -- Part IV: Restoration and Restitution -- From Booty to Beauty -- Wo Wacintanka -- For the Birds.

"A rural community is changed forever when moneyed interests conspire to transform a treasured wetland"-- Provided by publisher.

"An environmental history of Freeborn County, Minnesota's Big Marsh, which was tilled and drained 130 years ago at public expense for agricultural purposes. Told from a personal point of view, this story shows the enduring value of wild places and the importance of the fight to preserve them, both then and now"-- Provided by publisher.

Description based on print version record.