Hundreds of species of plants and animals flourished in the Thompson/Flag Lake area of the Illinois River Valley until 1922 when first Illinois River levee was built, isolating Emiquon from the river. The levees cut off the land from the river, and that diversity of life came to an end. All of that is changed in 2007, when the Nature Conservancy's Emiquon Project began restoring the habitat north of Havana, Illinois to its former glory.
