Small town's comeback is a precarious distinction

The tiny island town of Kaskaskia, Ill., has its quirky distinctions. It's a 300-year-old French settlement that became the state's first capital. A banished lover's curse may be triggering frequent, devastating floods here. And, perhaps most curious, it's the only Illinois municipality west of the Mississippi River.

Until the other day, Kaskaskia held another distinction. It was Illinois' smallest town.

But with the most recent census, that honor has slipped away like the slender neck of land that once joined the historic community to Illinois.

The smallest Illinois town now is Valley City, population 13, a community about 185 miles northeast, once known for its apple orchards, cheese factory and selection of fun taverns.

Kaskaskia, meanwhile, experienced a 55 percent population boom during the past decade, which, in raw numbers, is a less-than-astonishing influx of five new residents. Its official U.S. Census population rose to 14 from nine. Unofficially, somewhere closer to 20 people live here.

That news may yield shrugs of indifference, except when considering that in 1993, the town was under about 15 feet of Mississippi River water. Now, Kaskaskians are dealing with an intriguing question: Can their town be coming back?

"We've always been booming," said Emily Lyons, Kaskaskia's unofficial historian, official census taker and obvious booster. "Because we always have so much to offer people who come by. We've never had a down time. We might change in the numbers, we might change in looks, but we never had a down time."

Almost everyone else in town has a more tempered view and doubts the census figures signal much of anything.

"It really makes me no difference," said Dorothy Brown, 78, who moved to Kaskaskia after marrying native Courtney (Manny) Brown, 60 years ago. "I never thought it was a great honor being the smallest town."

She's more concerned about her fight with the American Association of Retired Persons, which keeps telling her she lives in Missouri.

It's a common predicament for residents in the 15 blocks of Kaskaskia village, who pay taxes to Illinois and officially are part of Randolph County. Residents also have Illinois driver's licenses, but their mailing addresses are in St. Mary, Mo. The Randolph County Sheriff provides law enforcement and the county plows roads, but the St. Mary Fire Department provides fire protection and emergency medical services.

Long before all that confusion, the French settlement named for a peaceful Native American tribe had been a busy river port of flour mills and grain exporters. Incorporated in 1725, the village was so beloved by French King Louis XV that in 1741 he sent a 650-pound bronze bell to Kaskaskia as a gift. The bell remains enshrined in a red brick building here.

But the community frequently was overrun by floodwaters, and local legend is that the trouble with water began with a French-American father who was angry that his daughter eloped with a young American Indian. He tracked down the couple, lashed his son-in-law to a canoe and set it adrift down the Mississippi, according to the story. The scorned husband cast a curse on the settlement.

One of those floods, in 1881, started to shift the course of the Mississippi River to the east -- flowing with the Kaskaskia River, instead of the Mississippi's original route to the west. Concerned town leaders moved the village toward the center of the 14,000-acre land mass.

About 50 years later, the Mississippi had gouged completely through the east side of the thumbnail-shaped stub that was Kaskaskia, transforming it into an island. The western course of the river that had separated Kaskaskia from Missouri became a bayou.

Population continued to drop, and by 1990, Kaskaskia had 32 residents. Then came the catastrophic flood of 1993, when the Mississippi River swept over the entire island. Historical records at nearby Chester, Ill., report that the flood of '93 displaced 70,000 people, destroyed nearly 50,000 homes and caused 52 deaths along the Mississippi.

Little left of the village

Across the street from the church is an overgrown lot where rusted monkey bars and a log cabin playhouse stand. No businesses exist in Kaskaskia, but the town does have a village board that consists of a mayor, clerk, treasurer and six trustees who meet twice a year in Sandy Roth's living room.

More deer populate the neighborhood than people, and an affable, honey-colored mutt named Sideways roams, serving as a barking sentinel. The only road access to Kaskaskia is by bridge to St. Mary.

The people who returned after the 1993 flood, like Mayor Dave Gendron, the Browns and Sandy Bedwell, said they were drawn back by the peaceful atmosphere, the hunting and fishing. Bedwell said once you get the island mud between your toes, you never want to leave.

Sandy Roth said neighbors are warm but respect each other's privacy and "never get into anybody else's business here."

Gendron noted that traffic is never a concern. "You don't have to worry about your kids going outside and all these trucks and cars rushing by," he said.