Used to be a thriving gunboat-building city in the Civil War period before the railroads. For a long time after the railroads it and the region to the north up to Carbondale grew the produce that supplied Chicago and St. Louis. The region is excellent for growing stone fruit, apples, etc. Then the interstates started killing off small towns everywhere and all the power was concentrated in the largest cities, and then the city dwellers take control of the state and death taxes wipe out the farm families by forcing land sales to pay taxes.
And it’s not good when the potential workforce makes more on welfare than it could from picking produce. My grandfather grew up in the region and was an expert orchard man, augmenting his income by catching and selling fish... until he opted to become a steelworker up north for a steadier income with bennies and the work in the mills gave him emphysema.
Now it’s just multigenerational welfare recipients who wouldn’t know good soil if they stood on it, unwilling to even pick up the litter in their town. They could be growing produce in the vacant lots to feed themselves, and catching fish in the sloughs, and filling their freezers with the best venison south of Calhoun County, and crafting furniture or other items from the fine lumber, but why bother when you can buy junk with an EBT card and hope for free FEMA stuff when it floods?
Why bother until there is no one around to accept the card because the slum atmosphere and the state’s awful taxes have driven people with any means to move on rather than serve dying businesses.
It’s truly a beautiful place where the rivers meet, but the people blighted it... and the handouts kept them there long after the economy dried up and disappeared.
My wife’s first husband’s family were big deals in the Cairo of old. The lumber business sold wood for Sear’s catalogue houses. There was a lot of wealth there back in the day.
A few months ago we went to give some materials for the local historical society. We met at the local library—a tiny but beautiful building. I saw a school bus parked out front and expected it to be filled with kids. But no, it was just the bus drive taking his break between routes. He, we and the librarian were the only ones in the place. I doubt if many of the locals are readers.
Virtually everything is derelict. Across from the library was a big building—an AME church and even it looked more or less abandoned. At one time, blacks in Cairo were able to erect a respectable looking brick church. Now, like the rest of the town, it is starting to crumble.