Brooklyn, IL

Brooklyn is a village in St. Clair County, Illinois, United States. The 2020 census counted 649 residents. Located two miles north of East St. Louis, Illinois and three miles northeast of downtown St. Louis, Missouri, it is the oldest majority-Black incorporated town in the United States, founded by freed and fugitive slaves and incorporated in 1873. They crossed the Mississippi River to the free state of Illinois, where they established a freedom village in the American Bottom. Brooklyn's local map joins its older history to the places and landscapes that still shape the town today, all within the wider Illinois setting. The local scoop is how Brooklyn's history still shows up in the places people visit, work, learn, and meet. Brooklyn lies along the southern margin of the Horseshoe Lake meander just north of the East St. Louis Mound Group of earthworks. Brooklyn's downtown is part of the local map.