Moving the river
Over time rivers can change quite a bit, carving a new direction
into the earth, or flooding, or even drying up. During the nineteenth
century the Mississippi River began to change its direction, moving
away from the city of St. Louis and toward
Illinoistown. This happened
when large sandbars formed in the river and the space between
the sandbars and the shore began to fill in with silt. If nothing
was done, St. Louis would soon be left without a waterfront and
transporting goods to the city by the river would become more
difficult.
The city of St. Louis finally acted about the growing sandbars
in 1833 when it commissioned John Goodfellow to plow up the St.
Louis side fill with teams of oxen. After spending more than three
thousand dollars on this endeavor they found that the river continued
to move away from St. Louis. The mayor asked for government assistance
and General Charles Gratiot, Chief of the Army Corps of Engineers
visited the city personally. Gratiot decided the problem could
be fixed by blocking the river flow between
Bloody Island and
the Illinois shore. The diverted water would flow westward to
the St. Louis side where it would erode Duncan's Island and deepen
the St. Louis port.