East Saint Louis, Illinois

City: East Saint Louis

County: Saint Clair

State: Illinois

Lat/Long: 38.6167, -90.1500

Situated in southwestern Illinois on the Mississippi River opposite St. Louis, East St. Louis, Illinois, is a city located in St. Clair County, Illinois. In 1799, French-Canadian missionaries established the village of Cahokia on the site that would become East St. Louis. With arrival of ferry service across the Mississippi River around 1818, Cahokia became a ferry station, and the Illinois Territorial Assembly changed the name to Illinoistown. The U.S. Post Office Department established a post office in the village in 1824. Illinoistown became an important transportation center in the second half of the nineteenth century. The arrival of railroads prompted the Illinois General Assembly in 1864 to change the name from Illinoistown to East St. Louis.

Webster's New Geographical Dictionary (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1988), 354; Edward Callary, Place Names of Illinois (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 103; Courtlandt Canby, The Encyclopedia of Historic Places (New York: Facts on File, 1984), 1:264.