EAST ST. LOUIS, precinct, formerly called Illinoistown, occupies the extreme north-western corner of St. Clair county, and was organized as a township the 6th day of June, 1820, the boundaries being as follows: Beginning at the bluff on the Madison county line; thence west on said line to the Mississippi river: thence with the Mississippi to the Cahokia line on the same; thence with said line eastward to the bluff; thence along the bluff northward to the place of beginning. By order of the county commissioners' court, September 14th, 1821, Illinoistown and Cahokia were made one election precinct, with the voting place at Augustus Pensoneau's residence in Cahokia. In 1851, Illinoistown became a separate voting precinct, and FrenchVillage was named as the place of holding the election. Again, in 1857, it was divided into two separate parts, respectively called Illinoistown and French Village precincts, the division line running due west from south-west corner of section 15, in township No. 2, north range, No.9 west, to the north-west corner of section 21, same township, thence south on the west line of section 21, to the south west corner thereof, thence west on the section line to the Mississippi through Cahokia precinct, from which a strip of about one-half a mile in breadth is taken from the northern part and annexed to Illinoistown precinct. The foregoing are the boundaries that the precinct embraces at this time. In 1866, the precinct appears under the name of East St. Louis, and that of Illinoistown dropped. This change of name is not made a matter of record, and the presumption is that by common consent, or usage, it assumed the name of its leading town, East St. Louis, which by a vote of the people of the corporation in 1861, gave it its present title. At the time of its organization, a strip of heavy timber about half a mile wide, extended south from the present town of Brooklyn to the village of Cahokia. What is now the city of East St: Louis was mainly covered with heavy timbers of oak, walnut, elm, etc., and was a favorite stamping ground for the hunter and the trapper.