A new sign was unveiled Wednesday in Wichita for the official new name of the drainage channel known as The Big Ditch.

Kansas 4th District Congressman Ron Estes and Senator Jerry Moran joined Wichita mayor Jeff Longwell and Sedgwick County Commission chairman David Dennis for the ceremony at Big Arkansas River Park.

Estes and Moran worked to get a bill through Congress to change the name from the Wichita-Valley Center Flood Control Project to the M.S. “Mitch” Mitchell Floodway.  Mitchell was a flood control supervisor for the city of Wichita and Sedgwick County and he developed the project in the 1950s after several devastating floods in the city.   Estes said Mitchell took the lead in moving the project forward, and it has protected the community over the past 50 years.    Mitchell died in 2017.

Estes presented Mitchell’s widow, Pat, with a copy of the bill signed by President Trump for the renaming of the floodway.