The Graveyard

We encountered another flooded riverside park on the north end of Thebes, Illinois.

A sign at the park explained that the stretch of river passing by here was once known as "The Graveyard" due to the large number of steamboats that sank in this congested stretch of river with frequently changing depth. In was reported in 1867 that there were 133 sunken boats sitting on the bottom of the Mississippi between Cairo and Saint Louis.

On the day we visited it wasn't boats that ran aground. It was the river itself that had run aground -- consuming this park and other parts of the small river town of Thebes.