Greenville, the St. Francis River, and Wappapello Lake

Greenville is the Wayne County seat, and it sits along the St. Francis River in southeast Missouri. The river here has a long history of flooding, and an older Greenville townsite stood on this low, flood-prone ground. In 1938 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began building a dam on the St. Francis River to control flooding, which created Lake Wappapello. The dam itself is well downstream of Greenville, so the town was not covered by the lake, but the river and the federally managed lake are both a big part of the county’s story. Local accounts describe an older Greenville site separate from the present-day town, and that history helps explain the area’s strong ties to the river. If you want the specifics — exact dates, the original location, and what moved and why — confirm them with the Corps of Engineers, the State Historical Society of Missouri, or state archives rather than treating any single account as settled, since local accounts of relocations can vary in the details.