Bloody Island: Missouri’s Infamous Dueling Ground

In the late 1790s, a large sandy island emerged in the middle of the Mississippi River, across from St. Louis, Missouri, as a result of the Mississippi’s current shifting and piling up silt and river debris. This newly formed island was in the jurisdiction of neither Missouri nor Illinois. As a result, the island quickly became a hub for illegal activities and transactions. The island hosted everything from boxing matches to cockfights, but what makes the island so infamous and gave it the moniker, Bloody Island, were the numerous duels that took place there.