Kaskaskia River State Fish and Wildlife Area

The Kaskaskia River State Fish & Wildlife Area is one of the largest state-owned and managed sites in Illinois. Located 35 miles southeast of St. Louis, Missouri, the area comprises more than 20,000 acres and extends along the Kaskaskia River from Fayetteville to the Mississippi River in St. Clair, Monroe and Randolph counties. The Illinois Department of Transportation owns the land along the river and leases most of the land to the Department of Natural Resources to manage for fish, wildlife and other recreational activities. A few areas are managed by the Kaskaskia River Port District for industrial use and are not available for public use.Baldwin Lake, a 2,018-acre reservoir built by Illinois Power Company, is contained within Kaskaskia River SFWA. This lake serves as a source of cooling water a nearby electric generating station. Baldwin Lake is open to the public for fishing and is a major part of the area’s waterfowl refuge. Southwestern Illinois, which includes Kaskaskia River SFWA, has traditionally been rich in fish and wildlife resources and was occupied by both American Indians and early settlers to the state. The Kaskaskia River remained essentially unchanged until the late 1960s when it was modified by channelization to promote commercial development and navigation. This led to eventual state ownership of the site and increased the public use of the area. Kaskaskia River SFWA possesses a wide variety of terrestrial and aquatic habitats. Water acres include not only the Kaskaskia River with its associated side channel and backwater areas (2,200 acres), but also Baldwin Lake (2,018 acres) and Peabody-River King State Fish and Wildlife Area (2,200 acres).A land area of about 16,000 acres includes an extensive mixed bottomland forest comprised of pecan, soft maple, bur oak, pin oak, shellbark hickory and willow. Many cultivated and fallow fields, native grass patches, brushy areas and other "open" areas are interspersed with the stands of mature bottomland timber. Due to this great diversity of habitats, good wildlife populations exist on the site.