Genevieve, Old Mines, Cadet, St. Louis, Richwoods, Prairie du Rocher, Cahokia, Kaskaskia, and Vincennes as well as several other locations.

With French colonial expansion into the North American interior, various missions, forts and trading posts were established under the administration of New France.

Since its inception, Kaskaskia possessed a diverse population, a majority of whom were Illinois or other Native American groups, with a minority of French voyageurs.

Continued immigration of Canadien settlers and natives of Illinois Country, as well as a need for other resources resulted in some founders establishing Sainte-Geneviève in 1735 on the west side of the Mississippi in what is now Missouri.

By this time, the French had established several footholds along the upper Mississippi River such as Cahokia, Kaskaskia, St. Philippe, Nouvelle Chartres, Prairie du Rocher, and Ste.

[8] Even so, after the British victory in the French and Indian War in 1763, many francophone residents of Illinois Country moved west of the Mississippi River to Ste.

[10] It is speculated that Native Americans may have already begun to process lead in the Upper Louisiana Valley by the 18th century, in part due to interaction with coureurs des bois and European expeditions.

[9] With large quantities of ore visible from the surface, entire Creole families moved inland to exploit such plentiful resources.

Genevieve and St. Louis assimilated more rapidly into English-speaking American society because of interaction with new settlers, while the inland mining communities remained isolated and maintained their French heritage.

Sainte-Geneviève has no more than a score of families which have remained definitely French.French did not fare far better in distant Vincennes where German immigration in the 1860s had severely weakened the French community and by 1930 there were only a small population of elderly francophones left.

[17] Use of French on school property was prohibited and it was not uncommon for students to face corporal punishment by monolingual, English-speaking teachers for using the language.

[17] From 1934 to 1936, Joseph Médard Carrière made several trips to the Old Mines area to study the Missouri French dialect and to collect folktales from local conteurs.

[8] In 1977, Gerald L. Gold visited the community to document how movement away from family and child labor in lead and baryte mining coincided with the loss of Missouri French as a maternal language.

The works of Miller and Carrière on the dialect helped to preserve some of Missouri French's lexical intricacies as well as document the influences of English as it was absorbed into the language.

[10][20] The work Folk Songs of Old Vincennes was published in 1946, helping to preserve some of the culture and language that had linked francophones across Illinois Country.

Starting in 1977, serious efforts began to revive the language; classes were offered in Old Mines assisted by eight native Missouri French speakers.

[21] By 1979, classes were held weekly with professional instruction and specific focus on Missouri French with eight core lessons; the course was regularly attended by 20 people.

[9] Three years later, the book It's Good to Tell You: French Folktales from Missouri (1982) was published, highlighting some of the best stories from the community and providing English translations.

Growing up near Vincennes, Indiana, in the 1990s Stroughmatt learned to play fiddle and speak the regional dialect in Old Mines and Festus, Missouri and Cahokia, Illinois.

L'rouè avait fait perdre ein tas des hommes pour essayer d'faire détruire Sam'son.