The Beginnings of Railroads
in St. Clair County

Sarah Jones
Belleville Township High School West, Belleville

On May 7, 2001, the Metro-Link, a light rail system that connects southern Illinois to St. Louis, added an extension from East St. Louis to Belleville, Illinois. This extension provided a much-needed transportation service to the residents of St. Clair County, giving them an alternate way to cross the Mississippi River into St. Louis. Although regular rail services for transporting people are not as popular as they used to be, rail services have played a vital role in the transportation of both people and goods in St. Clair County since the construction of its first railroad more than 150 years ago.

The plans for the first railroad in St. Clair County were developed in 1837 because of the abundance of bituminous coal that had been found in the Mississippi bluffs, located a few miles west of Belleville. Belleville resident John Reynolds and other landowners who had coal deposits on their ground realized that there could be a need for large amounts of coal in St. Louis, as well as in other towns located along the river and its tributaries. The problem was transporting it to the river. The idea of using railroads to transport goods was becoming popular in the United States. Therefore, these men concluded that a railroad would be the most efficient means of transporting this coal to St. Louis. They were quick to begin drawing up plans for what would later become the Illinois and St. Louis Railroad, one of the first railroads in not only St. Clair County but possibly the entire Mississippi River valley.

John Reynolds, the major organizer of the project, was also an important legal and political figure in both St. Clair County and the state of Illinois. He began his legal career as a lawyer in Cahokia in 1814 and later presided over Illinois' first murder case as a justice of the Illinois Supreme Court. Reynolds also served as a member of Congress and a member of the Illinois legislature several times. From 1830 to 1834, Reynolds served as the governor of Illinois. In later years, Reynolds authored such works as My Own Times and Pioneer History of Illinois. Until his death on May 8, 1865, Reynolds was an active resident of Belleville. In the midst of his myriad governmental positions, Reynolds provided much of the land on which this railroad was built. Although Reynolds and his associates had no prior knowledge of how to build or manage a railroad, they had the desire and the necessary resources.

John Reynolds, who became governor of Illinois in 1830, was a major figure in the devolopment of the railroad in the Belleville area.

The construction of the new railroad began at the foot of the bluffs, between Edgemont, now part of the eastern edge of East St. Louis, and Pittsburg, a town about two miles away that no longer exists. The railroad continued six miles westward across the American Bottom to Illinois Town, which is now part of the city of East St. Louis. Construction began in 1837. About a hundred men worked on the railroad construction. These workers received lodging and food while they cut the wood for the rails, leveled the roadbed, and laid the track.

Although the railroad was completed in an extraordinarily short amount of time, its construction did have its share of difficulties. The workers were forced to bridge the greatest of these difficulties, the Grand Marais Lake. This marshy lake was more than two thousand feet across. The task was overcome by driving stacked pilings into more than eighty feet of mud and water. After this was completed, a bridge was constructed over the tops of the pilings.

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Despite these obstacles, the construction began and was completed in 1837. Soon after, Thomas Winstanley drove the first horse-drawn railroad cars over the six miles of railroad. Even with the wooden base for the tracks, transporting the coal on the rails was faster than by horse and wagon, and larger amounts could be transported. However, in 1841, because of their financial situation, John Reynolds and his associates were finally forced to sell the railroad to the St. Clair Railroad Company. The immediate need for coal in St. Louis had not been as great as the men had expected, but the railroad's failure did not last for long.

It would be another four or five years before the railroad proved successful. Once it did, there followed several decades of growth that made the railroad line in St. Clair County one of the richest in the United States.

By the late 1840s and early 1850s, the construction of an extension of the railroad to the St. Clair County communities of Caseyville and Brooklyn began. By 1854 more than twenty-five tons of coal passed over the railroad each day. During the next two decades, the railroad expanded not only east towards Belleville but also to other locations throughout the county. In 1859 the railroad was reorganized again. It was now known as the Pittsburg Railroad and Coal Co.

Coal was still the major item being shipped. The path along which the railroad was constructed eventually became the location of twenty-three coal mines. By 1862 the railroad was carrying not only coal and other freight, but also nearly three hundred passengers each day. In 1865 it was renamed the Illinois and St. Louis Railroad and Coal Co. By 1869 the amount of coal had increased to more than 300,000 tons each day. Twenty years later, it became a part of the Louisville, Evansville, and St. Louis Consolidated Railroad Company. Finally, in 1900 the railroad became a part of the Southern Railway, which still exists today. It runs through West Main Street near Belleville West High School in Belleville.

The need to get the railroad across the Mississippi led to the construction of the Eads Bridge. With the completion of the bridge and because of the position of East St. Louis, directly across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, numerous switching yards were constructed in and around the city. This allowed East St. Louis to be the junction between St. Louis and the eastern United States.

Today, coal is no longer being mined anywhere in St. Clair County. Instead of coal being sent west to the Mississippi River, it is being brought by river barge and sent east by rail to the Baldwin Power Plant. This coal has a lower sulfur content than Illinois coal. One can observe the transporting of the coal by standing behind Belleville West High School. The railroad runs behind the school, and empty coal cars are headed to the Mississippi River while loaded cars are going east.

While railroads are no longer the quickest or at times the most popular means of transportation, both light rails and railroads are still significant in transporting freight and passengers. What some local historians believe to be Illinois' first railroad played one of the most important roles in bringing this means of transportation to southern Illinois and across the Mississippi River to St. Louis and the western United States.—[From Carl R. Baldwin, "East St. Louis: Overview of Railroads, " Journal of the St. Clair County Historical Society (1983); Belleville Sesquicentennial Commission, Reflections; Brink, McDonough and Co., History of St. Clair County Illinois; "Illinois and St. Louis Railroad," The Belleville. Weekly Advocate, Mar. 28, 1884; "John Reynolds," The Belleville Weekly Advocate, May 12, 1865; Alvin Louis Nebelsick, A History of Belleville; "Railroads Boom Mines," The Belleville Daily Advocate, Oct. 25, 1929; John Reynolds, " A Brief History of Belleville," Journal of the St. Clair County Historical Society (1969); F. D. Schwarz, "The March of Progress," American Heritage Magazine (1999); Edward William West, Historical Sketch of the County of St. Clair from Early Times to Present.]

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