Dispatches from Missouri's Twin City

FESTUS, Mo. — Festus and Crystal City have histories so intertwined that a Walmart store happily sits on the border between them (and the cities share the sales tax). Crystal City, population 4,549, is nestled on the Mississippi River about 34 miles south of St. Louis. Festus is due west of Crystal City, essentially trapping the latter against the river on the east and the town of Herculaneum to the north. These two small towns share an identity as the Twin City,  although the tension of “us versus them” remains.