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THE STANWOOD RIVER

       Geologists believe that before the glaciers came over Iowa the Mississippi River flowed through Iowa almost due north and south. It was the action of the glaciers, depositing immense quantities of soil as they melted that pushed the Mississippi to its present course, making the eastward “bulge” of eastern Iowa’s border. Nothing in the present topography gives the slightest hint of the now-buried river bed. The discovery is due to the well drillers of the county, who when they drill through the river bed find that their drills pass through scores of feet of river sand before they grind on the rock three hundred feet below the surface. These beds of sand are called the “Stanwood River” because the river enters the county north of Stanwood and passes close to that town, and east of Tipton. It follows the east side of Sugar Creek almost to the point where the stream enters the rocky gorge two and one half miles east of Lime City. Here it bends to the southeast and near Durant joins the ancient buried river which passes south in western Scott County, called the Cleona Channel. At Stanwood the rock floor is 544 feet below the surface.