The Cairo is a great story. And talk about doing things on a shoestring -- Ed Bearss, then a junior Park Service ranger/historian, even went on Price is Right to raise a big chunk of the salvage cost. (Ed, of course, was the fellow who located the wreck ... by scouring the river in a small boat, watching to see when his magnetic compass went nuts.) The Cairo could have been brought up intact had the Park Service, or anyone else, kicked in serious cash, but it was all strictly a do-it-yourself operation.
In a perfect world, we could even have preserved the wood. But there was no money for that, so the wood rotted away very quickly once it was exposed.
