A railroad line runs through the middle of the yards and a hotel is built (run by John and Inez Scovil and later by their son Jack) along with an exchange building. It quickly became the largest horse and mule market (developed by the Harry Sparks family) in the world and ranked second only to Chicago as a stock market. It is the most centrally located stock yards in America.

East St. Louis promises never to attempt to annex the area, but pledges to provide city services such as fire and police protection.

Work on the wooden, two-story, East St. Louis High School is started at Fifth and St. Louis Avenue.

Policemen begin wearing blue uniforms. They wear a matching cap similar to that worn by riverboat captains. In the 1880s the style will change to a helmet similar to those worn by the Keystone Cops. In the early 1900s caps of the peaked variety, like those worn by officers in World War I, are used.

City removes last barrier to northward expansion by razing an ancient Indian mound causing a jog just north of Ohio Avenue. Dirt, rock and bones from the mound are carried by wagon to fill a small lake that had been blocking the extension of Illinois Ave. between Seventh and Ninth.

The City Council authorizes construction of the first street railway system. The initial section of the horsedrawn car line ran down Missouri Avenue between Front and Collinsville Avenue.

Fire fighters have their hands full with the most costly fire of the era. A row of wooden stores and houses at 3rd Street and Broadway is destroyed, along with a brick mill and toll gate on the County Turnpike.

The incumbent mayor, Dennis Ryan, dies and is buried with imposing ceremonies.

Front Street is filled to a grade higher than the 1844 flood and its full width is "macadamized."

Vital Jarrot is elected president of the city commissioners. He is the first Republican to hold this office.

The American Bottom Board of Improvement, formed to improve drainage and flood control, contracts with the East St. Louis & Carondelet Railroad to build a levee from East St. Louis to East Carondelet. In return, the railroad is allowed to build tracks on the dike. Other railroads will be allowed to use the tracks under a regular tariff. John W. Conlogue is the contractor. Nearly all of the Board of Directors of this company are East St. Louisans, including John Bowman, ex-mayor J. B. Lovingston, Thomas Winstanley and John Trendley.