EAST SAINT LOUIS, a city of St. Clair county, Ill., U.S.A., on the Mississippi river, opposite Saint Louis, with which it is con nected by three great steel bridges; one of the great railway centres of the country and an important manufacturing city. It is the focus of 21 railroads from the east, north and south, in cluding the Baltimore and Ohio, the Burlington, the Chicago and Alton, the Big Four, the Louisville and Nashville, the Missouri Pacific, the Mobile and Ohio, the Nickel Plate, the Pennsylvania, the Saint Louis Southwestern, the Southern, and the Wabash; is on Federal highways 4o, 5o and 66; and is served by three electric inter-urban lines. The population in 1920 was 66,767, of whom 6.782 were foreign-born white and 7,437 were negroes; and had increased to 74,347 in 193o according to the Federal census of that year.
The city occupies 13.5 sq.m. of the Mississippi bottom-land, not much above the high-water mark of the river, but adequately pro tected by strong levees. The assessed valuation of property in 1927 was $52,379,610. Coal is mined at its doors (3,414,575 tons in the county in 1926). The output of the factories within the city limits in 1927 was valued at $81,469,436, and important in dustries beyond the corporation boundaries have an output of even greater value. Meat-packing houses employ 8,000 men; iron works, 13,000. Other leading manufactures are aluminium-ware, chemicals, glass bottles, flour, structural steel, baking powder, fireworks and petroleum products. The stockyards are said to be the largest horse and mule market in the world. Races are held regularly in the spring and fall.
East Saint Louis was laid out about 1818, and was chartered as a city in 1865. It grew most rapidly between 190o and 191o, when the population practically doubled. There is a famous pre historic mound (Monk's mound) near the city. The village of Cahokia, at the southern edge of the city, was one of the earliest French settlements in the Mississippi valley.