River was a marshy plain, extending southeastward towards the toe of the Huron-Erie Lobe. First the Union City Moraine formed, then as the ice receded and again stabilized the Mississinawa Moraine formed along the front of this ice The Saginaw Lobe's meltwater flowed across the St. Joseph valley, while the Huron-Erie Lobe's meltwater and sediments first flowed into the upper Tippecanoe River. When the glacier moved back to the Mississinawa Moraine, the off flowing water created the Eel River valley. The waters coming down the St. Joseph valley crossed the till plain south and east of the future South Bend entering the valley of the Kankakee River. Water from the Huron-Erie Lobe came through the upper Tippecanoe valley, spreading across the till plain, in Starke, Pulaski, Jasper, and Newton counties, merging with the shallow waters in the Kankakee basin of St. Joseph, LaPorte, Porter and Lake counties. The meltwaters were trapped between the ice masses to the north and east and the Nebo-Gilboa Ridge, an offshoot of the Bloomington Moraine to the south and the Marseilles moraine. On the west, the Marseilles moraine formed the final and lowest barrier. In the vicinity of Marseilles, Illinois the waters crested the divide and created an outlet into the pre-glacial Mississippi River, creating the modern Illinois River. This event is known as the Kankakee Torrent. Description Lake Kankakee covered over of northern Indiana and the border of Illinois. The lake had two open bodies of water, split by the Iroquois Moraine, which formed a peninsula from the west. The northern waters stretched from just west of Momence, Illinois, along the main stem of the Kankakee River to the marshes southwest of South Bend, Indiana. The southern waters stretched from near Watseka, Illinois eastward to the Tippecanoe River. These two basins were linked across of the nearly level Tipton Till Plain, west of the Tippecanoe River. The valley of the Tippecanoe from Monticello, north pass Winimac and reaching to Rochester was a part of this lake. Development Beginning around 15,000 years ago, the Michigan lobe of the Laurentian glacier had retreated back to a line along the Valparaiso Moraine, from Wisconsin along a line, inland of Lake Michigan, southward, around the City of Chicago, and the southern tip of Lake Michigan, through Indiana, curving northward into the State of Michigan, only inland from the shoreline. Meanwhile, the Huron-Saginaw lobe had melted back to the