KASKASKIA RIVER

partly navigable stream in Illinois, U.S., rising in Champaign county near Urbana and flowing southwest to enter the Mississippi River north of Chester, in Randolph county, after a course of 320 miles (515 km). Near its source the Kaskaskia flows through Lake Shelbyville, a reservoir impounded by a dam, and it then passes through another reservoir, created by Carlyle Dam. The river is notorious for its variation in volume. In the late 19th century there were heavy floods at its influx into the Mississippi, which finally inundated the village of Kaskaskia, the first capital of Illinois. The shifting Mississippi adopted the bed of the Kaskaskia and cut through a peninsula to create the present Kaskaskia Island. Kaskaskia is an Indian tribal name meaning uncertain.