little to prevent the flat area on the Missouri River bottoms from flooding from the streams that emptied into the area. In 1908 two years after its completion the land was flooded. In 1915 in a flood that was said to be worse than the Great Flood of 1881 which had been an incentive for draining the land indundated much of land. On August 23, 1935 Executive Order 7156 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt called for a reversal of the project to create a "refuge feeding and breeding ground for migratory birds and other wildlife." It was the first national wildlife refuge in Missouri. Its original planned name was the "Squaw Creek Migratory Water Fowl Refuge." The original plan called for it to be 8,135 acres but the government was unable to acquire all the land and it was reduced to 7,415 acres. The plan allowed for management of the runoff from the local creeks with various pools. The Civilian Conservation Corps was tasked with restoring the wetland state. The basic ditch drainage system still remains with Squaw Creek and Davis Creek combined with water from a channeled Tarkio Creek draining almost due south from the refuge into the Missouri. Among the construction at the refuge were 15 impoundments totaling , construction of of dikes and levees and of ditches. The headquarters area includes a 100-seat auditorium and of exhibit space (the University of Missouri also has Loess Hills exhibits as does the St. Joseph Museum in St. Joseph, Missouri, which has a Loess Hills diorama). A trail built by the Civilian Conservation Corps climbs vertically to a refuge overlook from which you can see Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska. A one-way gravel road (the "Wild Goose Tour Loup") travels around the edge of the refuge. The refuge reports that 134,245 visited in 2001 with 41,683 at the headquarters. Renaming In December 2016 Daniel M. Ashe, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said he was going to rename the refuge to Eagle Flats by the second week of January 2017 before the Barack Obama administration left office. Authorities noted that the Fish and Wildlife Service has the authority to change names without public input. Another name that was floated after the announcement was Loess Mounds. On January 11, 2017 the refuge was officially renamed Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge. The announcement stated that the creek is still an important