Grand Tower Island

Grand Tower Island lies on the left bank of the Mississippi River in a remote area between St. Louis, Missouri and Cairo, Illinois.

[8] Between 2006 and 2007, researchers from Southern Illinois University in nearby Carbondale studied fish at various locations within and along the Mississippi River from the vicinity of Golden Eagle to Cairo.

[9]: 295 Grand Tower Island is connected to the Illinois mainland by a protective levee,[10] which was built during late 1910 from soil and stones that had recently been dredged from the river's main channel.

[6]: 4–62  Virtually all of the portion of the island behind the levee is used for agriculture, with the sole exception of the thin line of trees responsible for the deadwood that provides the excellent fish habitat.

[6]: 4–90  According to a report produced by the Middle Mississippi River Partnership, a federal-state consortium of river-management organizations, most of the land in the island is "prime farmland", with the exceptions of occasional areas that would require drainage to become productive.