St. Louis vs. Rutz, supra (2)

Extensive flooding in subsequent years, particularly in 1873, caused large portions of the upper end of the island to wash away with the bars forming at the island’s lower end.

These bars, in successive years, formed into upland overgrown with willows.

By 1876, the island had actually moved downstream by more than a mile through this process.

In regard to the deposits at the foot of the island,

“the court determined that such bars were not formed by accumulations of sand or soil washed against the lower end of the island,”

but by deposits in times of flood, of soil and sediment upon the bed of the river.

In the period between 1876 and 1882, the U.S. Government constructed a dike and a dam from the Illinois shore to Arsenal Island with the dam located at the northern end of the island.