TIME has a recent article on Cairo here.
From Future City:
http://www.cyburbia.org/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=22132
http://www.cyburbia.org/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=22133
http://www.cyburbia.org/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=22134
http://www.cyburbia.org/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=22135
That’s strange, there are no flying cars in any of those pictures.
As a person whose hobby is called “Urban Exploration”, if I was a dude I’d have a boner looking at those pictures.
Does this guy count?
Ah, yes, Southern Illinois and their colorfully named towns - Cairo, Future City, Urbandale, Carbondale, Centralia, Vandalia, Beardstown, Effingham, Metropolis, etc.
Beardstown is north of Springfield! You must have a very different definition of “southern Illinois” than what I have.
Well, at least he can write on his unemployment form that he was looking for work.
This place has haunted me ever since I saw the pictures back in elmwood’s thread.
I’ve visited Cairo too, it’s a fascinating place. Here are some pictures I took, though not as good as elmwood’s. I took a tour of one of the two mansions, it was really strange to walk away from the squalor and suddenly there’s a couple of mansions and other nicer homes.
I was born and raised in Cairo. I left when I was 8 but I’ve always had love for my hometown. Lately, I’ve had a renewed interest in Cairo. Cairo is everything that was said on this message board, yet there’s more to it! Cairo has been the victim of massive political corruption, on the city and the county level. The selfish interest of a few, stunted the growth of the town. There once were many businesses in Cairo, the few that didn’t close down because of the refusal to hire, and serve blacks is one reason. Another reason is the fact that mom and pop shops were threaten by the stores that were outside Cairo. They were scared that people would stop coming into town and shop at the stores and gas stations by the interstate. They were right, but wrong because without the stores by the interstate no one has a reason to even stop.
One of the biggest problem facing Cairo is the extreme cost of utilities. On the average the cost of utilities here are HIGHER than those in Chicago. There isn’t any valid or excusable justification for the extreme cost. People can’t afford to live in private housing here. If you’re one of the lucky few to find a job, you still can’t afford private housing on a single income. Due to the high utilities cost most of the people live in public housing, because at least there you will be able to afford to survive. I’m not perfect and I don’t think I can fix the world, but I do hope to fix my hometown one day.
I just wanted to provide a little background info on the town that racism, bigotry, and greed killed.
Cairo also had yellow fever problems at the turn of the century (i.e., 1890s-1900s).
I used to travel through Cairo down to Mississippi, for blues research trips. There was a really cool huge arched viaduct that you had to drive through, to get to town. I think it was an old Illinois Central train line that ran on top of it. At that point in time
(1970’s), the town had a lovely library, and a couple of rapidly-deteriorating antebellum homes in need of repair & tourists to tour through them. There were a couple of BBQ joints that were pretty good. One ‘of’ em put their BBQ on WHITE TOAST.
I must also mention the song “Cairo Blues” by Henry Spaulding, and later redone by St. Louis bluesman Henry Townsend. Exquisite!
Also Robert Nighthawk’s song about the cab company “3-6-0” refers to a company that was located in Cairo.
There’s an airport northwest of the city that appears abandoned except for a pair of biplanes.
Well, Cairo was pretty big during the riverboat era, around the time of the Civil War and after. In 1907, it had 20,000 people and a customs house, no mean feat for an inland city. Its current problems reflect just how far a large, commercially important city can decline due to changes in technology.
This was actually one of the parts of the town that affected me most – because it’s not (only) a viaduct for train tracks.
There’s one main road into Cairo from the north, Route 51. Heading south into town, 51 passes first under a railroad bridge, then through the large arched tunnel – through one of the massive levees that protects Cairo. At the point the road enters town, the distance from the bank of the Ohio to the bank of the Mississippi is slightly over one mile. The risk of flooding is great.
So in 1914, they built the gate.
Eighty tons of steel that took 4 men to lower into position – and eight men to raise again – and that’s with the help of counterweights. In case of a major flood, the gate was to be lowered, sealing off the tunnel through the levee – and cutting off Cairo’s only connection to the rest of Illinois (the southern tip of Illinois has bridges to .
When it was built, the town’s newspaper covered the first test, reporting that it took more than 50 minutes to remove the trolley cable and track in order to test, but less than 10 minutes to lower the gate. The newspaper also said it would probably be tested every year.
Now, I use the past tense because I’ve talked to the Army Corps of Engineers who’ve told me the isn’t part of the flood control plans any more. I’ve also talked to people who have lived there for 60 years and haven’t seen it tested. Some of them told me that they weren’t too afraid it wouldn’t come down if they needed it to – they were more afraid it wouldn’t go back up.
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Google street view: You’re looking at the gate. You can see the grooves in the wall to the left and right, and the overgrown bit at the top is the infrastructure to raise and lower it. There’s a plaque on the wall just inside the left side of the tunnel that talks about the gate. If you back up (away from the tunnel) once, you’re under the train bridge. Twice and you can see it.
Here is a clearer photo of the whole levee: There’s the train bridge (orange/red with “Cairo”), a gap, then the gate (blue) – you can see the infrastructure very clearly here, and rising behind that is the actual levee.
I think, though I’ve never been 100% clear on this, that during the great Ohio River flood of 1937, the gate was closed, they parked a train on top of the levee (there is or was a rail line on top of the levee in addition to the bridge), and sandbagged under, around and possibly even on top of the train.
Also, the library is still there, and in operation (or at least that was true as of a few years ago).
Yeah Cay-rohh… they got a court order to force the town to allow integration in the public pools. So CAY-ROHH decided instead to cement the public pools. What a legacy to leave the young…
Also… While driving with my brother to a wedding in Little Rock… we stopped in Cairo (not my choice obviously) to get something to eat. We walked into a KFC and everyone at the counter walked to the back of the kitchen. So his dumbass stands their for like 10 minutes thinking they’ll eventually come out and serve us… My response was… idiot I told you to keep going until we got to Marion!! This was in 1997…
Uhhhhh, I’m dyslexic & left-handed. That song is “6-3-0”.
I never knew about the “floodgates” in the viaduct that passed through the levee. Thanks for the info.
Frankly, I LIKED Cairo. Yeah, it was sort of beat, but I have this weird architectural imagaination, that can conjure up what trashed old buildings must’ve looked like, it their heyday.
Hey, I used to hang out on Chicago’s West Side! Prime brown- & graystone two- & 3-flats worth restoring, IMHO.
Yup, I toured Magnolia Manor (the magnificent ornate plaster ceilings were falling down), went through the library, and remember the tower of the Customs House vividly.
Thanks for all the links, to those who provided them.
Now if I could only remember the names of the BBQ joints! I think it was one family, running two places. The better one had sliced pork loin (not chopped) on the white toast. No cole slaw on top.
THe BBQ joint I was remembering is SHEMWELL’S. A photo of the place turned up on one of these links, which I only now have had time to check out.
Go, Dopers & the internet 
The KFC in Cairo closed well before 1997. Magnolia Manor has been well restored and its ceilings are no longer crumbling. Shemwells is one BBQ joint. There’s also Macks which will reopen soon. The library is still open, and the airport is still open and running. I think there’s a company running a sky diving company out of the airport, in addition to the other airport functions.