2017 Map of Wolf Island

About this map

The Mississippi River carves a complex path through the lowlands between Mississippi County, Missouri, and Hickman and Fulton Counties in Kentucky. This 2017 survey details the shifting alluvial landscape where state lines often follow the river's historic mid-channel rather than its current flow, leaving features like Wolf Island and Moore Island as prominent markers of the waterway's power. The Missouri side is notably dotted with family and community burial grounds, including Wolf Island Cem, Ivie Cem, Barnes Cem, and Lee Cem, which provide essential points of reference for genealogists tracking early families of this floodplain. Across the river in Kentucky, the terrain rises into steep elevations such as Chalk Bluff and Three Ponds Bluff. This map captures a modern view of a centuries-old transit corridor, where Obion Creek joins the river system near Beckwith Bend amidst a network of levee roads and drainage patterns.