The Reversing Course: The Illinois River In 1900 and Today (Daily 5/6-11/6)
US Army Corps of Engineers National Great RIvers Museum at the Melvin Price Locks and Dam 2 Lock and Dam Way, East Alton, United StatesThe Illinois River enters the Mississippi River just north of St. Louis. In 1900, the City of Chicago reversed the Chicago River, constructing a canal that flushed all of that city’s untreated sewage into the Illinois River. The solution to one city’s problem—stench and waterborne disease—was solved by shifting the problems downstream to the ecology […]