Nineteenth Century Rail in East St. Louis

East St. Louis' waterfront in 1874. The Illustrated Atlas of St. Clair County, Illinois, 1874-1901, Courtesy the University of Illinois Library

During the late nineteenth century railroad companies built their tracks into East St. Louis with increasing frequency. The city was new, a merger of the city of Illinoistown, the town of Illinoistown, the town of St. Clair, and eventually the important riverfront area known as Bloody Island. The railroad companies had little trouble buying the right of way for their tracks. The timing of East St. Louis' development as a city and the desire of the railroads to establish central terminals on the Mississippi River's edge came at a high cost to the local residents. Rail tracks ran throughout the city; long snaking roads of steel and wood converged on the area, finding space wherever necessary to reach the huge rail yards developing on the waterfront. East St. Louis was a means to an end for the railroad companies. The men who ran them cared little for the condition of the city or the status of its inhabitants. They focused on making their lines profitable and they allowed few things to interfere with this pursuit.

The Terminal Railroad association's Brooklyn Roundhouse, just north of East St. Louis. From 1919 Terminal Railroad Association valuation map.

More complex than the mass of tracks twisting through East St. Louis, railroads were businesses where the difference between success and failure was often narrow. Industrial production in America began to grow rapidly near the end of the nineteenth century. Railroads offered a new way to connect the far reaches of the country with industrial centers. New products could be sold in places where it was once prohibitively expensive to ship goods. Railroads also promoted rural growth. Wherever a new line passed, towns would soon follow, relying on the line to bring them the goods and materials to survive and prosper. A railroad boom swept America in the 1880s. Soon, one out of every thirty-two people would be working in some way for a railroad company. The entrepreneurs of the era understood that rail transportation promised a means to make great fortunes.

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