Editing Kaskaskia, Illinois (section)

===Effects of the Mississippi River===
[[File:1875 Kaskaskia with present day satellite imagery.png|thumb|1875 map of Kaskaskia, Illinois, overlaid upon satellite imagery from 2019. Most of the original town site of Kaskaskia is now covered by the Mississippi River, including the location of the first Illinois state house.]]
From [[St. Louis]] to the confluence of the [[Ohio River]], the Mississippi became wider and more shallow, resulting in more severe seasonal flooding. In the late 19th century, the town was cut off from the Illinois mainland and mostly destroyed by repeated [[flooding]] and a channel change by the Mississippi River. Much of the former property of Kaskaskia and other French colonial towns on the river has been lost.<ref name="Norris">F. Terry Norris, "Where Did the Villages Go? Steamboats, Deforestation, and Archaeological Loss in the Mississippi Valley", in ''Common Fields: An Environmental History of St. Louis'', Andrew Hurley, ed., St. Louis, MO: Missouri Historical Society Press, 1997, pp. 73-89</ref> Following the [[Great Flood of 1844]], residents of Kaskaskia relocated the town to the south. The original location of Kaskaskia became an island, surrounded by the Mississippi River. The flood of 1881 destroyed all remnants of the original town and the Mississippi shifted into the channel of the [[Kaskaskia River]], passing east instead of west of the town.

Parts of the town were rebuilt in the new area. As the Mississippi continued to flow through its new bed, earth was deposited so that the village land became physically attached to the west bank of the river, which primarily lies within the boundaries of the state of [[Missouri]]. Now a [[bayou]], the old channel is regularly flooded by the river. A small bridge carries traffic from the mainland over the bayou to Kaskaskia and its surrounding farmlands in the floodplain. A levee lines the river to the east. In 1893 the people of the town moved and rebuilt the Church of the Immaculate Conception at Kaskaskia. They also built a [[Kaskaskia Bell State Memorial|shrine]] in a similar style nearby to house the "liberty bell".<ref name="ChurchVisitorsGuide"/>

By 1950, only 112 people lived in Kaskaskia. By 1970, the population had fallen to 79, and it continued to decline to 33 in 1980. The town was submerged under nine feet of water by the [[Great Flood of 1993]], which reached the roofs of the buildings. By 2000, with nine residents, Kaskaskia was almost a [[ghost town]], the least populous incorporated community in the state of Illinois.