BELLEVILLE, a city of Illinois, U.S.A., 14m. S.E. of St. Louis, adjoining East St. Louis; the county seat of St. Clair county. It is served by the Illinois Central, the Louisville and Nashville and the Southern railways, and (through a belt line for freight) by 22 other railways entering East St. Louis. The popu lation was 24,823 in 1920, of which 2,393 were foreign-born white —the majority from Germany—and n 1930 by the Federal census.
The manufacture of gas and coal stoves, ranges, and warm-air furnaces has been the leading industry for 5o years, employing normally 2,000-2,500 skilled workmen. Other important products are castings, shoes, hosiery, shirts, trousers, stencil-cutting ma chines, flour and feed, bricks, auto tops, caskets, mine machinery, threshing-machines and tractors. The output of the 83 establish ments in 1927 was valued at $19,380,712. Notable crops of winter wheat and potatoes and a fine variety of white asparagus are grown in the vicinity. Belleville is in the midst of an important bituminous coal-field. About 3,00o miners live in the city, and the 6o mines within a few miles have a combined productive capacity of 6,000,000 tons a year.
Scott Field (61 pc.), an important station of the Army Air Corps, with a total personnel of about Boo, lies 8m. E. of the city. It is the central supply-depot for the entire lighter-than-air di vision of the air service, and a training-school for airship pilots and observers. The equipment includes searchlights visible for 50m. and a hangar which covers five acres.
Belleville was settled about 1806; established as the county seat in 1814; and incorporated as a city in 185o. Originally Compton Hill, it was renamed when it became the county seat. Ninian Edwards, the first governor of the Territory of Illinois, and Lyman Trumbull, author of the 13th amendment to the Constitu tion, were residents of the city. There is an Indian mound seven miles to the north-west.