Funeral Home (1865) 1019 State Street Welge Brothers (1902), 953 State Street Welge Studio, 981 State Street Bridges Chester is connected to Perry County, Missouri via a river bridge known as the Chester Bridge. The Chester Bridge was first constructed on August 23, 1942, as a toll bridge. Sections of this bridge were destroyed by a storm in July 1944, but it was reopened in August 1946. Tolls ceased to be collected on January 1, 1989. Media Chester now has Channel 10 through Cable TV. It broadcasts events, post announcements and upcoming community events, relays emergency notices and much more to the citizens of Chester. Students from the Chester Grade School contribute daily broadcasts from the school. Chester's newspaper is the Randolph County Herald Tribune, and the local radio station is KSGM. Claims to fame On April 11, 1842, Charles Dickens, the author of A Christmas Carol and Great Expectations, visited Chester with his wife. Mark Twain, the author of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, a pilot on the Mississippi River between 1857 and the Civil War, supposedly on many of his trips stayed at Chester's Cliff House, a fine river hostelry. Twain also mentioned the blue windows of Chester's Cohen Home, visible from the Mississippi, in his book Life on the Mississippi. The Chester post office contains a federally commissioned mural, Loading the Packet, painted by Fay E. Davis through the Section of Painting and Sculpture, later called the Section of Fine Arts, of the Treasury Department. A former postal employee favored the mural so strongly that he said if the building should catch fire, the mural should be saved rather than the mail. Chester was the filming location of scenes from the 1967 movie In the Heat of the Night and was only mentioned in the 1993 movie The Fugitive. Geography Chester is located at (37.913947, -89.823140). According to the 2010 census, Chester has a total area of , of which (or 99.73%) is land and (or 0.27%) is water. Demographics As of the census of 2000, there were 8,400 people, 2,018 households, and 1,283 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 2,229 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 94.87% White, 3.59% African American, 0.15% Native American, 0.21% Asian, 0.04% Pacific Islander, 0.21% from other races, and 0.93% from two or more races. Hispanic