River des Peres

River des Peres. . , The River and the City, . By the 1900s, St. Louis was dumping its raw waste into the river, making it a sewer, . For the 1904 World's Fair, St. Louis buried the river alive beneath Forest Park to hide the sewage and the stench, . As development grew along the river, paved surfaces forced rain runoff into the channel, causing frequent flooding downstream including a major flood in 1915 that resulted in significant loss of life and property, . From 1924 through 1933, bond money funded the rerouting, straightening, deepening and concrete lining of portions of the river, . From 1933 through 1940 channel improvements were funded by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (1933-1934) and the Works Progress Administration (1935-1940) employing up to 3500 men at one time to place riprap in the channel, . In 1988, the "channelized" river was named a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, . The river carries the runoff of a (unreadable) square-mile watershed that includes St. Louis City, 42 county municipalities and five tributary watersheds, . Two large sanitary sewers run under the channel, River Des Peres Watershed, Prior to channelization, the river's original meanders and wetlands helped filter and purify its waters.