Elks Building. Cairo, IL2
Cairo, IL (Alexander County)
The history of Cairo is among the most complex and fascinating of any municipality in Illinois, rife with schemes, skirmishes, phenomenal growth and almost equally phenomenal decline. In many respects, it remains to this day the history of promise unfulfilled.
The site of Cairo, commanding the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and at the virtual center of an immense network of navigable waters, has excited hopes, predictions and dreams of the Great Metropolis at least since Xavier de Charlevoix commented upon it in 172l. That year, however, hardly marks the beginning of Cairo's municipal annals, even though those annals do begin several years before there was anything resembling a settlement on the site. (1)
References (1) NRHP Nomination Form gis.hpa.state.il.us/pdfs/200098.pdf
Elks Building. Cairo, IL2
Cairo, IL (Alexander County)
The history of Cairo is among the most complex and fascinating of any municipality in Illinois, rife with schemes, skirmishes, phenomenal growth and almost equally phenomenal decline. In many respects, it remains to this day the history of promise unfulfilled.
The site of Cairo, commanding the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and at the virtual center of an immense network of navigable waters, has excited hopes, predictions and dreams of the Great Metropolis at least since Xavier de Charlevoix commented upon it in 172l. That year, however, hardly marks the beginning of Cairo's municipal annals, even though those annals do begin several years before there was anything resembling a settlement on the site. (1)
References (1) NRHP Nomination Form gis.hpa.state.il.us/pdfs/200098.pdf