What happened to Cairo, Illinois?

Question

And I don't mean during the Civil War. Why is it abandoned? What happened to it?

Answer 1

There was a major earthquake in the Mississippi river valley in 1811. The quake was so strong, the Mississippi river flowed backwards. I belive Cairo was hit and devastated by this earthquake.

Answer 2

I grew up near that area, so this is what I know. Cairo was a town to be reckoned with at the height of it's population growth, mostly because of its location in the United States. Cairo has our two main rivers (Ohio & Mississippi) converging beside it and it still is ideal for merchants moving all kinds of products. The location of the town is still perfect for commerce interchange because it also has interstate connections going east and west as well. Now that is just from the physical location of Cairo, Illinois. So from that standpoint it is very hard to see why the Town of Cairo did not develop into a major metropolitan area like Chicago or New York City.

However, if you are from that area you're probably well aware of Cairo's historical underbelly that has destroyed the area and the city it could have been long ago. The town itself has a nasty racial undercurrent and everyone that is left is part of its continued sickness. I remember the days of the civil rights movement, people died there or went missing for no apparent reason. To this day, many of the locals won't even talk about its history as if it never happened. During those times, my parents would not allow us go any where near that town. The bigotry continued even after the civil rights movement subsided. That is when the town really began to decay like rotting fruit on a living vine. Small towns all around Cairo began to grow and prosper (little bit by little bit), but Cairo citizens, merchants, police and Cairo's city officials took to racism, infighting and corruption. From my vantage point those elements of hatred did not provide room for a common ground of growth and expansion. So the town began to die, slowly at first, but then picked up momentum when the few companies that were there closed up shop or moved to other more hospitable places to conduct business.

To accelerate the towns decay, in the late 1980's Cairo had the opportunity of having Interstate 57 come right by the town. However again, because of Cairo's corruption and infighting the Dept. of Transportation chose to bypass the town all together and moved the expressway with its new bridge about 10 miles away from the town. That was pretty much a death sentence to the town, because the old traffic had no reason to go through Cairo to get to either, Kentucky or Missouri. The most recent blows to Cairo has been major flooding and levee breaks. But if you think about it, if Cairo had developed like it should've it would have been too valuable for the flooding to have occurred in the first place. Cairo does not have the lowest elevation in this country, it just have a lot of poverty and little interest to protect it at this point.

If you are wondering when I was last there to visit, it was in April 2015. I had the privilege of walking down Commerce St, a street that is now wiped clean of all but one or two dilapidated buildings that will probably be bulldozed too. While there I could not help but think, maybe now it can start over with a clean slate. I am glad to have been from that area, but that is the extent of it.

Answer 3

The first nearby bridge across the Ohio seriously hurt the finances of Cairo. From http://www.lib.niu.edu/ipo/2001/ihy010448.html
"The fatal blow to Cairo occurred in 1905, when a railroad bridge was completed across the Mississippi River at Thebes, a small town northwest of Cairo. This bridge affected the ferry business as well as dealing a heavy blow to Cairo's status as a railroad hub. Traffic soon shifted to the new bridge at Thebes, decreasing the traffic through Cairo and completely eliminating the ferry operations at Cairo."
Riverboat gambling is now a part of the urban renewal.

Answer 4

I didn't know that Cairo Illinois was abandoned. I've read alot about Cairo, maybe it was a flood, sorry I can't give a better answer.

Answer 5

The people of Cairo, Illinois would certainly be interested in knowing that their city is abandoned!

Answer 6

I don't know what you mean, that it's been abandoned. Cairo, Illinois isn't dead. It has been pretty sick a few times, but it's always pulled through.

Answer 7

As of 2000, there were 3,632 people living there. The population has been in decline since 1940, when the population was 14,407. It is the capital of Alexander County and is majority African-American.

Answer 8

Cairo is alive!

http://www.cairocitizen.com/history.htm

Answer 9

It was a dirty speculation that crashed. It is the original of the American frontier town that features in Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit.

Answer 10

Border skirmish with Lebanon, tennessee. It was brutal.