The State of Illinois will gladly swap East St. Louis to Missouri for Cape Girardeau or Hannibal.
East SL has always been a dirty and corrupt place. In the mid '60s it was run by a boss named Buster Workman who exacted tribute from anyone running any kind of business. On the other side of the river it was an ex detective who took over the teamsters named Lou Shoulders that controlled things. You might remember the Bobby Greenglass kidnapping case where fully half of the ransome money turned up missing. Shoulders was the suspect as he was the cop in charge at the time. Both the cops and the mob worked together on both sides of the river.