Disturbances within many communities are common, but the recovery of riverine fish assemblages from anthropogenic fish kills is often not well documented. Quantification of fish community recovery is needed to assess how rapidly or whether recovery occurs without mitigation. To address this need, we evaluated the temporal dynamics of six streams located in central Illinois, including systems impacted by fish kills and an undisturbed reference system. We found species richness and the index of biotic integrity experienced dramatic shifts within the first year after the disturbance event, while fish density varied less within most streams. Interestingly, local extinctions following a kill event were not limited to only rare species, with some dominant components of the local community also lost. Some impacted streams experienced small compositional changes, similar to those within the reference system, while other streams experienced large and continued compositional shifts following disturbance. The rate of compositional change decreased significantly with time since disturbance in all locations, especially within the first year. Most metrics of recovery reached a level of relative stasis three years after the disturbance event. Based on this, we recommend disturbed streams should be monitored for at least three years to fully document recovery dynamics and to determine whether active restoration efforts are warranted. Streams which do not recover during this time frame will likely require direct intervention to achieve recovery. Our results also highlight the importance of regular stream monitoring to document a stream's baseline composition and dynamics if a disturbance were to occur.