Photo courtesy of Flickr /Gary Todd
Chicago Magazine is hoping that St. Louis will come on and feel the Illinoise.
Chicago Magazine likes what the Lou is up to so much they want us in their state.
An article posted to the 50-year-old magazine's website yesterday argues that St. Louis should ditch Missouri and join team Illinois.
The piece titled "We’ll Swap You Southern Illinois for St. Louis" argues that Chicago and St. Louis have much more in common with each other than they do the rural areas of their respective states. Apparently, counties in southern Illinois are already voting to explore secession, so the piece's author, Edward Robert McClelland, suggests they go ahead and secede their way over to Missouri, and Illinois will take St. Louis in exchange.
As McClelland points out, if this deal did go down, Illinois would lose a 198-foot-tall cross in Effingham, but acquire the three-times-as-tall Gateway Arch. That does seem like a pretty sweet deal for Illinois.
Not to mention that in addition to the Arch, Illinois would also be getting the St. Louis City SC, the Blues, more empty brick houses than they'd know what to do with, Tower Grove Park, Forest Park, Steve’s Hot Dogs, a culture of highly imprudent driving, the Cardinals, the Cardinals' 11 World Series championships, and the list just keeps going.
The proposed swap would require Illinois to part ways with the World’s Largest Catsup Bottle.
Talk of St. Louis leaving Missouri in one fashion or another is nothing new. McClelland's own piece even cites a Bill McClellan column from 2011 suggesting a similar proposal.
To McClelland's credit, he's willing to accept us warts and all. He writes: "We already have plenty of urban street crime in Illinois, so a little more won’t hurt us."
We welcome tips and feedback. Email the author at [email protected]
or follow on Twitter at @RyanWKrull.
Coming soon: Riverfront Times Daily newsletter. We’ll send you a handful of interesting St. Louis stories every morning. Subscribe now to not miss a thing.
Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
