What ever happened to Kaskaskia?
Kaskasia started out as a french mission in Illinois along the Mississippi and Kaskaskia Rivers. Kaskaskia could have become a thriving city - most early settlements have now become urban because they existed for so long, such as New York City, which started out as New Amsterdam, or Boston, which started out in the late 1600's. Kaskaskia was created surprisingly early - in 1703 by a French Missionary.
At its peak population Kaskaskia was a thriving 7000 as of 1809. Kaskaskia was crowned the capitol of Illinois in the same year. You would think it would have already become larger than chicago by now! But to this day the total population in nine. Today Kaskaskia is on the other side of the river. How did that come to be?
In April of 1881, flooding destroyed much of the town and the city of Kaskaskia was transferred from Illinois to Missouri. The Mississippi originally bended westward, forming a long bend around the western side of the town. The fast currents cause the river to dig farther into the banks where the ends of the bend occured until finlly it broke through and formed a new channel around the right side of Kaskaskia. The left soon emptied out. So, the Mississippi changed course from around the west side to the east side, forming Kaskaskia into an island, and ultimately adding it onto Missouri. Today several of the town's residents actually have zip codes and liscense plates from Missouri. To this day no one is sure if Kaskaskia belongsto Illinois or Missouri.
The official border between Missouri and Illinois is the Mississippi River, but if the river changes course, then the border changes with it. So, the once prosperous community of Kaskaskia that was the capitol of Illinois was shifted west by the movement of the Mississippi into Mssouri.
This story shows how Mother Nature can alter the borders of our states whenever she wants.
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