Today in Labor History February 15, 1764: the city of St. Louis was established in Spanish Louisiana (now Missouri). In the 1800s, St. Louis would grow to become the second largest port in the U.S. and one of the major centers of labor organizing. In 1877, during the Great Train Strike, black and white workers united to take over the town in what some called the St. Louis Commune, after the Paris Commune, a few years earlier. The uprising in St. Louis was led by the socialist Workingmen’s Party, fighting for the 8-hour workday and an end to child labor. The Commune was quashed after soldiers killed 18 workers.
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