[2] Approximately 18,000 businesses failed between 1873 and 1875, production in iron and steel dropped as much as 45 percent, and a million or more lost their jobs.

Violence began in Martinsburg, West Virginia and spread along the rail lines through Baltimore and on to several major cities and transportation hubs of the time, including Reading, Scranton and Shamokin, Pennsylvania; a bloodless general strike in St. Louis, Missouri; and a short lived uprising in Chicago, Illinois.

What began as the peaceful actions of organized labor attracted the masses of discontented and unemployed workers spawned by the depression, along with others who took opportunistic advantage of the chaos.

[6] In East St. Louis, Illinois, on July 22, train workers held a secret meeting, resolved to call for an increase in wages, and strike if their demands were not met.

After several more speeches, they further clarified the demands by adopting a series of resolutions:[7] Whereas, The United States government has allied itself on the side of capital and against labor; therefore, Resolved, That we, the workingmen's party of the United States, heartily sympathize with the employes of all the railroads in the country who are attempting to secure just and equitable reward for their labor.

Resolved, That we will stand by them in this most righteous struggle of labor against robbery and oppression, through good and evil report, to the end of the struggle.The demand was made and rejected that same night, and so effective at midnight, the strike began in East St. Louis,[9][a] and within hours strikers virtually controlled the city.

[11] The following morning strikers announced they would allow passenger and mail trains passage through the city, but intended to stop all freight traffic.

When the Chicago & Alton attempted to start one of their freight trains on the morning of the July 23, it was stopped by the strikers and returned to the rail yard.

[11] On the morning of July 24, the strikers resolved to stop the movement of passenger trains in addition to freight.

The strikers then returned to the Union depot and stopped a train from leaving, allowing it to pass two hours later.

[12] A total of 3,000 to 4,000 people gathered at the depot, and unrest swelled, particularly following the announcement that six companies of infantry were on route to St. Louis.

At 6:00 PM six companies (consisting of about 350 soldiers), led by Colonel Jefferson C. Davis arrived from Fort Leavenworth.

Six additional companies were directed to St. Louis from the 16th and 19th Infantry regiments to leave posts in Kansas, Colorado, and the Oklahoma Territory.

As the soldiers were only directed to protect federal property, the strikers were largely unaffected by the arrival of troops, and gathered at the Union depot, where they would spend the night.

Their 360-man police force, while many were retained in readiness for some sort of outbreak, "remained strangely inert during the upheaval."

After urging by Davis, efforts soon began, led by municipal authorities and various prominent citizens, to raise a 5,000 man force.

Thirty minutes later, approximately 500 strikers marched to the levee, in an effort to get roustabouts to join the strike.

By 10:00 pm, however, the men of the Laclede Gas Company had reached an agreement with their employers, and returned to work.

During the strike, the city was virtually unpoliced, and a request to protect private property made by the employers of the Union Street Railway was also refused.

The Mayor of St. Louis, Henry Overstolz, issued a proclamation warning strikers to not destroy public property.

At 10:00 am, 2,000 men (composed of strikers and loafers) had marched from Lucas market place to a manufacturing district, where they dismantled Belcher's Sugar Refinery to prevent its 400 workers from returning to work.

The rioters were made calmer by the information that Davis had increased his troops to 600 men, and stood ready to respond to a call for help from the governor or mayor.