Basic Information
- Type of Place
- Suburb
- Metro Area
- St. Louis
- Politics c. 1860?
- Unions, Organized Labor?
Sundown Town Status
- Sundown Town in the Past?
- Surely
- Was there an ordinance?
- Yes, Written Evidence
- Sign?
- Yes, Strong Oral Tradition
- Year of Greatest Interest
- Still Sundown?
Census Information
| Total | White | Black | Asian | Native | Hispanic | Other | BHshld | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1860 | ||||||||
| 1870 | ||||||||
| 1880 | ||||||||
| 1890 | ||||||||
| 1900 | ||||||||
| 1910 | ||||||||
| 1920 | ||||||||
| 1930 | 4502 | 0 | ||||||
| 1940 | 4680 | 1 | ||||||
| 1950 | 7290 | 1 | ||||||
| 1960 | 7630 | 1 | ||||||
| 1970 | 7309 | 4 | ||||||
| 1980 | ||||||||
| 1990 | 7063 | 11 | ||||||
| 2000 | 6830 | 64 | ||||||
| 2010 | ||||||||
| 2020 |
Method of Exclusion
Main Ethnic Group(s)
Group(s) Excluded
- Black
Comments
email 1/2008
Message: Things haven’t changed all that much in E. Alton. I moved to the area about four years ago and was looking for a place to live.
With a daughter in junior high, one very pertinent question was “how are the schools here?” I asked a prospective landlord this and his answer was, “Well I tell you this…we don’t have none of THEM PEOPLE in our schools
Again, this was in 2004…
***
According to FEPC (Fair Employment Practice Committee)Chairman Malcom Ross, “The town’s policy put it on conflict with President Roosevelt’s Executive Orders against discrimination in defense industries because important war plants of Olin Industries were there [Western Cartridge Company]. The company claimed it could not hire Blacks because for over 50 years the town had not permitted Blacks to live or work there.”
According to Ross, quoting F. W. Olin, the ordinance dated back to 1895 when a “Negro boy” committed some crime and men had gone hunting for him with shotguns, but he got away. His angry pursuers reportedly swore that no Negro would ever again set foot in East Alton. One exception was made for a Negro already working for Mr. Olin, long since dead at the time of Ross’s writing in 1948. Ross reported that the town had grown from a few families at the end of the 19th Century to a sizable town over 50 years without any Negro ever having stopped the night. The chapter details the conflict with FEPC over this situation. The FEPC failed to alter the town’s ways.