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1944
1944 - Population of the city reaches 76,000. East Side basketball team, led by fourth team All-Stater Walter "Slip" Kersulis, went to the Sweet Sixteen for the first time since 1929. They ran into the Taylorville Tornadoes led by the outstanding Johnny Off. Some say the Flyers might have won had they not lost their outstanding center, Bob Hinkle, to mid-year graduation.
Dorothy Spannagel is appointed by Superintendent M. E. Bruse as the first Director of Audio Visual Education for Dist. #189 schools. The bridge at Chester, Illinois, collapses during a storm with high winds. The U. S. Army Corps of Engineers is called in to clear the debris to keep river traffic flowing during wartime. City has 10 parks, 64 churches and 52 schools. Bing Crosby stars in the movie "Going My Way." The character he plays on the silver screen wears a St. Louis Browns' baseball cap and is from East St. Louis. The village of Alcoa is incorporated. Its name will be later changed to Alorton. which is a contraction of Aluminum Ore Town. At the time, the village only had a population of about 2,000 residents. Most of the people living there moved in from East St. Louis. In 1954, the placed doubled its size when it annexed a two-mile square tract which included Cahokia Downs race track. The school district, organized on the 6-3-3 plan, is described as maintaining a progressive system "well up in the first rank of American cities." Evergreen Gardens on Collinsville Road near Route 157 reopens as a gambling resort/restaurant. H. C. Schnell, the owner, periodically leased the nightclub to other syndicates. Most of the employees are former workers at the Club Royal on Route 13 near 57th Street. It had recently shut down due to a man getting killed there by the blazing guns of a gambling war.
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