Valmeyer, IL

Valmeyer was built twice. The original village sat in the American Bottom floodplain near the Mississippi, where repeated floods shaped local life and the 1993 flood overtopped the levee and damaged much of the town. Residents chose relocation, broke ground on higher land in December 1993, and spent the next few years building a new Valmeyer over 400 feet above the old site. Illinois Route 156 still connects the two maps: it runs through the new village and the old village center. Valmeyer is one of those places where “old town” and “new town” are both literal directions.