This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island. Back in the 1850s, Chicago challenged St. Louis to a duel—a duel that was fought at Rock Island.

This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island. The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1993 affected Rock Islanders in different ways. To me, it recalled a Minnesota childhood in a world still cleanly divided into good little children and bad children.

This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island. Rock Island is a three-mile-long limestone kidney plunked down in the Upper Mississippi River, midway between St. Paul, Minnesota, and St. Louis, Missouri, the only stone island in the whole river.