Spoon River flows through West-Central over a 163 mile path commencing south of Neponset and passing through five counties before emptying into the Illinois River near Havana. The Spoon River watershed drains about 1,855 square miles of West-Central Illinois and is a major water resource of the region, including the area of Fulton County included in the V.I.T. School District. The river flows through lands that are primarily agricultural and timber lands. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources rates water quality of the Spoon River to be good along 81% of its course with the remaining 19% classified as fair. The primary factors influencing the quality are nutrients and sediment. The Bernadotte dam is the only dam on Spoon River. Sport species commonly occurring in the river include largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, channel catfish, drum, crappie species, bullhead species, bluegill and miscellaneous sunfish species.
Spoon River Anthology (1915), by Edgar Lee Masters, is a collection of unusual, short, free-form poems that collectively describe the life of the fictional small town of Spoon River, named after the real Spoon River that ran near Masters' home town. The collection includes two hundred and twelve separate characters, all providing two-hundred forty-four accounts of their lives and losses.