Before the flood control project of 1957 and 1958, Battle Creek experienced severe flooding once every 10 years on average. This image accompanied a July 23, 1978, retrospective by Enquirer and News staff writer Virginia Gust and was likely taken in 1904 or 1908. The flood control project — much celebrated at the time but today remembered for its destruction and displacement of a African-American neighborhood known as The Bottoms — included the dredging and diversion of the Kalamazoo River.