St. Philippe, Illinois

St. Philippe is a former village in Monroe County, Illinois, United States. The settlement was founded by Frenchman, Philip Francois Renault, during the French colonial period, in 1720. St. Philippe was strategically located near the bluffs, that flank the east side of the Mississippi River, in the vast Illinois floodplain, known as the "American Bottom". The village was located three miles from Fort de Chartres. Because of many decades of severe seasonal flooding, St. Philippe, along with the fort, was abandoned before 1765.

In 1719, Philip Francois Renault arrived from Picardy to the area. A friend of the French King Louis XV, Renaud was given a large tract of land for mining purposes. However, he was not as successful as anticipated. However, he founded the village of St. Philippe along the Mississippi and soon, his village was producing a surplus of crops, which was sold to the towns and villages in the southern part of French Louisiana. The town was strategically located along fertile Mississippi River bottomland. Surpluses from the productive cultivation by habitants later helped supply critical wheat and corn to New Orleans and other lower Louisiana Territory communities.

D'Artaguette, an inspector in the country in the early 18th century, wrote:

"This country is one of the most beautiful in all Louisiana. Every kind of grain and vegetables are produced here in the greatest abundance.... They have, also, large numbers of oxen, cows, sheep, etc., upon the prairies. Poultry is abundant, and fish plentiful. So that, in fact, they lack none of the necessaries or conveniences of life."

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