Railroads and East St. Louis
Railroads became the lifeblood of East St.
Louis in the late nineteenth century. Rail transportation was
changing America. Railroads opened the country up as never before;
people traveled across the land in great numbers, they moved to
the edge of rural areas and further because train tracks offered
them a link back to the cities; goods and materials could reach
once isolated places and the time to deliver them shortened; towns
and cities thrived or suffered depending on the presence of rail
transportation. Cities and towns where railroads laid tracks
often boomed into commercial transportation centers.
RiverWeb offers you a glimpse at some of these developments.
You can follow the history of rail development in America and
learn how East St. Louis fits in, you can learn about the construction
of the Eads bridge and its importance to rail transportation,
or you can trace the history of the Nickel Plate Rail Road, one
of the many companies that laid tracks in East St. Louis.
The story of the Nickel Plate.