The Mississippi River’s changing course has shaped how people have used and lived along it from prehistoric times to the present. Native American people lived along its banks for many generations, relying on the river for food and transportation. Early European explorers traveled it to reach the interior and northern reaches of what would become the United States, and from the 17th to 19th centuries it served as a fur trading route. Soldiers of several nations were stationed along the river at various times, and in the early 1800s white settlers arrived in St. Louis by steamboat, often bringing enslaved people with them. Colonial settlers forcibly removed Native American people from lands along the river and transformed the landscape into farms and cities. After steamboat use declined, railroads were built along the riverbank, followed by power plants, oil tanks, warehouses, elevators, conveyors, and junkyards that took advantage of river and rail transportation access. Along the urban greenway, riverbank trees provide food and shelter for wildlife including fox, beaver, wild turkeys, deer, coyote, hawks, falcons, owls, and eagles, while also filtering sediment, reducing flood damage, and helping prevent erosion. The Mississippi River watershed, the fourth largest in the world, covers 1.25 million square miles in the U.S. and Canada, and water flowing through streets, creeks, rivers, and streams carries the effects of human actions downstream, including plastics and other trash that can eventually reach the ocean.