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20-756: The General Dean Suspension Bridge spans the Kaskaskia River at Carlyle in Clinton County, Illinois , United States. It is named after Major General William F. Dean , a native of Carlyle who served during the Korean War . The bridge is listed on the National Register of Historic Places . It was added to the Register in 1973. The bridge was originally constructed in 1859 at a cost of $ 40,000. The original bridge remained in operation for nearly seventy years. Before
40-644: A blufftop overlooking the Mississippi River . It commemorates the vanished frontier town of Old Kaskaskia and the support it gave to George Rogers Clark in the American Revolution . The village of Kaskaskia, Illinois , was founded at the mouth of the Kaskaskia River in the Illinois Country as a missionary post by the Jesuits in 1703, on lands which were hunted and farmed by the tribal members of
60-510: A flood, the moving water of the Mississippi "discovered" a much smaller, parallel riverbed, the mouth of the Kaskaskia. Kaskaskia's bed was a few feet lower than the Mississippi's bed, so the whole river shifted to the new watercourse, cutting across the head of a former oxbow to do so. For the village of Kaskaskia, the river's new course was disastrous. Their village had been by the waterfront of
80-525: Is a campsite and picnic area overlooking the Mississippi River. The remains of the 18th-century redoubt can be vaguely traced in the earth. The prominent Kaskaskia cemetery recalls the 1881 flood. The site was named one of the contributing properties to the new French Colonial Historic District in 1974, along with other area French-influenced sites such as Fort de Chartres , the Creole House ,
100-521: Is a tributary of the Mississippi River , approximately 325 miles (523 km) long, in central and southern Illinois in the United States. The second largest river system within Illinois, it drains a rural area of farms, as well as rolling hills along river bottoms of hardwood forests in its lower reaches. The lower reaches of the river have been canalized to allow barge traffic. In 1819, Vandalia up
120-814: The Illinois Confederation . Soon afterwards, settlers from the Quebec and Louisiana regions began to trickle towards the rich, alluvial farmland of the central Mississippi Valley. They built a village and agricultural settlement around the location of the Jesuit mission, a half-circle of bottomland cradled by the Kaskaskia River and by an oxbow of the Mississippi. French -speaking pioneers were noted throughout North America for their comparative fairness towards Native Americans . Furthermore, some French settlers and soldiers married and had children with Illini women, under
140-480: The 19th century, the river joined the Mississippi at Chester. Deforestation of river banks of the Mississippi and tributaries to fuel the hundreds of steamboats that plied the river had several significant environmental effects: destabilizing the banks, causing the Mississippi to become wider and more shallow, causing more severe flooding and leading to lateral channel changes in the American Bottoms area. In
160-645: The British, led a tiny force down the Ohio River . Clark hoped to achieve a strategic coup by linking his expeditionary column with the French-speaking settlements of the Mississippi Valley. Clark and his men marched overland from Fort Massac , near the present-day Metropolis, Illinois , to Kaskaskia. They avoided being sighted by the British or their Native allies and arrived at Kaskaskia on July 4, 1778. Most of
180-526: The French ceded the eastern Illinois Country, including Kaskaskia and the abandoned fort, to Great Britain. The British did not use the fort and left Kaskaskia almost defenseless. Kaskaskia continued to exist as a French-speaking village on the Mississippi River frontier. In early 1778, George Rogers Clark , eager to defend what was western Virginia and the Kentucky country from attacks by Native Americans allied to
200-402: The Kaskaskia townspeople welcomed them. After facing a threat from a British force at Vincennes, Indiana , Clark and his men used Kaskaskia as their jumping-off place to capture Vincennes in early 1779. The Americans controlled Kaskaskia and its redoubt throughout the rest of the war, and won legal control of the territory in the 1783 Treaty of Paris . Following the war, Kaskaskia was part of
220-527: The Mississippi from the north approximately 10 miles (16 km) northwest of Chester and 40 miles (64 km) south-southeast of St. Louis, Missouri . The watershed of the river encompasses approximately 5,746 square miles (14,880 km ), approximately 10.2% of the state of Illinois. The Kaskaskia is impounded in Shelby County to form Lake Shelbyville . It is also impounded in Clinton County southwest of Vandalia to form Carlyle Lake . For most of
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#1732869646708240-518: The Missouri shore. The Kaskaskia River State Fish & Wildlife Area is located along the lower river in southern Illinois. Fort Kaskaskia was located near the mouth of the river in Randolph County . [REDACTED] Media related to Kaskaskia River at Wikimedia Commons Fort Kaskaskia Fort Kaskaskia State Historic Site is a 200-acre (0.8 km ) park near Chester, Illinois , on
260-464: The United States and the large, French-speaking population became slowly Americanized . Lewis and Clark stopped here in 1803 and recruited many of the professional hunters and sharpshooters that accompanied them to the Pacific Ocean in their fateful 1804–1806 expedition. The village served as the only capital of Illinois Territory in 1809–1818, and briefly (1818–1820) as the first capital of
280-470: The aftermath of a major 1881 flood, the Mississippi changed its channel and moved east to flow along the lower 10 miles (16 km) of the channel of the Kaskaskia, shifting the confluence 10 miles north. As a result, a small portion of Illinois, including the former capital, Kaskaskia , was cut off from Illinois when the river moved to its east side. It is now located on the west side of the Mississippi. The community of Kaskaskia can now only be reached from
300-572: The benediction of the priests of the Jesuit mission. However, as the Kaskaskia settlement grew throughout the 18th century, the local Indians may have realized that there might not be enough space for everybody. The French settlers raised Fort Kaskaskia around 1759; the fort stood atop the bluff that looked down upon the frontier village. "Fort Kaskaskia" is not technically a " fort ", but an earthen redoubt . Frontier settlers throughout Woodland North America often built such redoubts as defensive moves during times of threat from Native Americans. In 1763,
320-541: The bridge was constructed, travelers were forced to cross the Kaskaskia at Carlyle by ferry or over a mud bridge. In 1950 the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) recognized the bridge for its architectural significance. HABS recommended preservation of the bridge. The Illinois General Assembly set aside $ 20,000 for bridge restoration in 1951, and in 1953 the bridge was named after Major General Dean. Kaskaskia River The Kaskaskia River
340-422: The much smaller river; now the mighty Mississippi was swallowing the town up. Even the village cemeteries were at risk. In an emergency operation, 3,000 graves of the departed of Kaskaskia were exhumed and the remains reburied atop the bluff to the east, at the site of old Fort Kaskaskia. The state of Illinois agreed to maintain the site forever as a memorial to the vanished historic village. Fort Kaskaskia
360-657: The new U.S. state of Illinois following Illinois's admission to the Union on December 3, 1818. Pierre Menard , a wealthy fur trader who lived across the Kaskaskia River from Kaskaskia at the bottom of the Fort Kaskaskia redoubt, was elected the new state's first Lieutenant Governor . During much of the 19th century and especially after the American Civil War , the Mississippi River cut through many of its former oxbows and shortened its channel considerably. In 1881, during
380-482: The river in the interior of the then new state of Illinois was chosen as its capital, which it served as until 1839. "Cascasquia" is an alternative, supposedly more French, spelling of "Kaskaskia" that is sometimes encountered. It was named after a clan of the Illiniwek encountered by the early French Jesuits and other settlers. "Okaw River" was an alternative name for the Kaskaskia that persists in place names along
400-481: The river, including Okawville , and in a major tributary, the West Okaw River . The Kaskaskia rises in east central Illinois in several farm ditches along the west side of Champaign . The headwaters of the river is just north of Interstate 74 , where it is marked with a sign. The river flows south across rural Champaign and Douglas counties, then southwest across southern Illinois, past Vandalia . It joins
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