I served in the National Guard in Cairo from 1977-1993. The 1344th Trans. Co. The 1244th Trans. Co & The 130th inf. Det.1. You can see the beautiful armory in the video built in 1936 if I recall. The state has abandoned it & donated it to the city. I drove through the town recently,& it is far worse shape now than it is in this video. Many of the business' places I remember are gone,just to name a few...The What-a Burger on the north side of the floodwall..The 51 Drive in located close by that...The Nu-Diner on the south end...The True Value store..Glens Truck Stop adjacent to the interstate..the Gem theater. I took my physical to join the Guard at the hospital there which is also shown in the video. Thanks for posting...maybe there are others out there from my old National Guard Unit. BTW..the music was perfect for the video.
My grandfather's antique store can be seen at 2:15. Back then it was all picture window displays and not boarded up. They lived in the apartment upstairs with my aunts and uncles. My uncle Tommy fell out of the 2nd story window when he was a toddler. Scraped him up but no broken bones. My sister and I were born in that hospital when it was called Saint Mary's Hospital. I'm glad they showed the bridge to Kentucky, because that's where my sister and I grew up. The little village called Wickliffe Kentucky is 5 miles past the end of the bridge.
I was born and raised in Olive Branch Illinois which is really close to Cairo. My cousin is the att. there. My mom and grandma worked at the courthouse there. I remember going there all the time when I was little..
It's sad what has happen to this place. In '96 I was part of a group that did volunteer work for about a month in S. Illinois and we spent 10 days in Cairo. We met some really good people during our time there. Some of my favortie memories take place in Cairo. I always wondered how the place was all these years later. I always hoped this place would make a comeback.
Breaks my heart my family the knights, moyers are from cairo dad was born there in that old hospital in 1943 grandmother was born there in like 1916 grandpa in 1912 great grandparents ran a tobacco shop there roots run deep there lots of kin folks there
Moved away 2 years ago... I only visit every now and again for family only. The history of this place is amazing but seeing the buildings during my visits only makes my heart ache at the current situation of this once great town...
Thanks for the video! Glad you captured it before it was gone. That yellow brick building @2:31 was the McKinley Interurban station, the building that stored the street trolleys built in 1910. Really neat video!
Excellent video. Haunting images. We went through Cairo today on the way home from Missouri. Took some photos. Everything looks the same as in the video. Cairo is ne of the saddest places I've ever been through. Such magnificent structures destroyed by neglect. Thanks for posting.
@1967mustanggta I was born there, It was a wonderful small town. We walked downtown, to the park, to church. to Shemwell's bar-b-que. I will always love Cairo for what it was and what it meant to me and my family. My Grandpa McGruder was the meterologist in Cario.
What happened to Cairo? Back in the early 1970s we used to travel to Indiana and Wisconsin every summer via I-57. I-57 had no river crossing yet, so we had to cross on US62 then into Cairo. What a bustling town that was back then! I bet that corner drive-in restaurant not there anymore is it?
+Robert Hughey You have raised a good point. Cairo's main reason for being 50+ years ago was the bridges over the Ohio and the Mississippi. When I24 was built from Paducah to Carbondale, I57 from I55 to Carbondale, and the Dyersburg spur from northwest TN to northeast AK, Cairo IL lost its reason for being and turned into a ghost town. The problem is especially bad given the racial tensions there.
+alnot01 I loved Cairo when I was a kid. I thought it was so neat getting to see the two major rivers come together. I remember Dad stopping at this drive-in, where we ordered lunch on our return trip home. They had the menu painted on large pieces of plywood.
what a lovely video!!i think alot of these little places could be revived if people are sent there in times of disasters (hurricanes,floods,etc) and given funds to help rebuild the homes they are given...
I less born and raised in Cairo.. Moved after my mom and dad passed when I was 13..moved back when I was about 20. no jobs there that one reason that the town is almost a ghost town now
This is a good place to visit. Anyone who lived a sheltered life in the 50's-80's could use a dose of this place. Spend some time talking with some of the old folks and you can really learn something.
I love Cairo! I'm going down for the fourth. MOst of my lives down there. It's boring as hell sometimes but we(family) always make it fun. You shoulda showed pictures of the underground prison. It's a very historic town all they need is a damn Mc donalds for when I get the late night munchies when I'm down there. Oh and they have little hole in the wall clubs too. It's aiight. Lil old Cairo... I still love to look around when I go down there.
Have a relative who's lived there for many years...still does. Everyone calls him 'Red' (AKA Vincent Doss) owner of Cairo Music Sales. I haven't visited there since 85. Probably the richest man in town...he owns the airport and most of the aircraft there as well.
So sad. A town, on the confluence of 2 mighty rivers, should be as big, if not bigger and wealthier, than St. Louis or New Orleans. I grew up 20 miles from Cairo. My grandparents lived there. Many wonderful memories from late 70's/80's. Saw my 1st movie at the Gem theater when I was 5. My cousins and I got to go see Pete'a Dragon. There was a bakery, Eddie's Pastry, they had a butter top coffee cake (NOT a gooey butter coffee cake, that isn't fit to eat in my opinion) that I could eat my weight in! So yummy. Long ago there was a What A Buger just before you went under the trussel into town that had the best burgers. I remember Mack's BBQ, the OLD Shemwells BBQ (not the place that is still there today, no comparison) and don't forget The Turf, which was a bar but had the BEST pizza ever! Today Cairo doesn't even have a grocery store, just a Dollar General. No fresh meat or vegetables unless you drive 30 mins to MO or KY. Poverty abounds. So sad. There should be no reason whatsoever for that town to be in the pitiful condition it is. I can only assume corruption is to blame. In fact, if you dig deep enough you will find that was the case with the public housing commission, they were happily taking the governments money without any upkeep or maintenance. Eventually the public housing was condemned and razed. Many families left without a home. The town is still full of wonderful people just a sad state the town is in. Lots of love to the wonderful people of the deepest part of Southern Illinois.
We used to drive thru Cario on the way to central IL as a kid. My mother would always stop at a restaurant downtown for lunch. She went there as a child in the 1920s and took us there. I wish I knew what the name of the restaurant was? It had red brick walls and big ceiling fans. It looked like it was built in the 1800s. Maybe some of you old timers remember it?
Grew up just up the road in Mounds late 50's to early 70's. Cairo was already on the decline then as well as Mounds and Mound City both which look pretty much the same now. I was through all three towns in Jan of 2012 as i was returning to AZ from Nashville...just a small detour to pick up some Shemwells BBQ and sauce and all three look pretty miserable. Still have a few friends that live in the area i visited but will be a while before i'm around there again.
OK, I did your whole "what if your hometown..." now look at it my way, in my eyes. My family's chemical business REVOLVES around people in the spillway that use our chemical and our fertilizers, and we own a sizable portion of the spillway as well. What if your family's income was sizably, not completely, but sizably, from the spillway, would you not want the spillway saved?
In Mark Twain's time, Cairo was a very important port-in the days of the riverboat steamers. It began its decline in the 1930s, as rail shipping took over from riverboats. There is simply no need for it anymore-and be advised that the Mississippi/Ohio Rivers flood periodically-so that makes the city even less viable.
I remember in the 50's a man caught a catfish where the rivers met, Laid it out in the back of his pick up and the thing stretched the whole lenght of his PU bed and that a true fish tale. I would have given the same odds of catching a job then as I would for the fish. Thats what brought out the bitterness the simple stress of surviving. It has such historic beauty mixed with such sad times.
This was a really cool video! I think I'll get some of my friends to help me make one like this... This looks like a fun place to explore with your friends for a few days, I kinda want to go now...
Yes, Cairo has a fire department. It's mostly paid on call personnel. They have just what they need to cover most residential house fires but, I think they are a little short in fighting industrial fires. There isn't a lot of industry there to begin with but, rail and barge traffic does pass through.
IIBasemanII: Decatur, IL is East of Springfied in central Illinois. Cairo, IL is the further point South in Illinois. It sits on a peninsula at the convergence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. It's a very sad and depressing place seemingly forgotten by the rest of the State. I do not recommend visiting Cairo. Tom C. Bull Valley, IL
I forgot to mention ---it's not that there's no industries there----it's because the large majority of the people didn't want to work and the industries couldn't get rid of them, so they had to pack up and move elsewhere with their companies. East St Louis has access to many jobs---but once there is a way of life you're comfortable with, it's the path you tend to follow. I feel for the ones who really are stuck and want to better themselves.
Believe me, I am in favor of the farms, too. Just, I think that many of the houses there, if fixed up could be expensive houses. I live up in Saint Louis, and there are houses in Kirkwood which are selling for like 400,000 dollars and the architecture doesn't come close to the cairo houses. This whole flooding deal this past year was awful. There are many people who live in cairo and their neat houses as well as many farmers who need land, and the people who need food. Its sad both ways.
Wow! Im from Chicago but moved to Sterling rock falls area and hated it because of such deadness. This is terrible and a rotten shame. Beautiful mansions and worthless.
There are a lot of old farm towns like this in Oklahoma and Kansas. There are old buildings everywhere, completely empty. No new houses have been built in 50-60 years. Maybe 300 people live there, when once it was 3,000. Cairo sticks out in my mind because of an infamous general who made a name for himself there...U.S. Grant.
Daytripped to Cairo, Illinois today. Creepy, creepy feel. Almost no signs of commerce, except for the hordes of police looking for someone to go 30.00001 MPH so they can write a revenue-producing ticket. Fort Defiance State Park, however, was pretty, and an interesting geographical point of America (the rivers were pretty high today).
Cairo has the best low income dental clinic in SI. They pulled my wisdom tooth. :) But yea its a crying shame what happened to that city. It now looks more like Silent HIll.
i remember going through cairo on the way from indiana to texas and back quite a few times in the 60s. once dad was going to stop for the night and at the gas station asked the guy where would a good place be. he said it would be best to just keep on driving. there was going to be trouble that night. they were expecting more fighting.....so we moved on. it was falling apart then. at future city there somebody wrote on the city limits sign; FUTURE CITY (only time will tell).......
Preston Ewing stood up against racism and bigotry. The way Cairo is today has little to do with one man's behavior alone. it's too late to name names! Most of the problems in Cairo today are due to demographics.
Excellent video of a once great bustling community. I was in the National Guard unit in Cairo for 15 years(1977-1992) and saw it's slow decline. I visited/patronized many of the shops & stores shown in the clip.On the north side of town in the 70's there was a drive-in theater & a What-a-burger. If you look closely at the Custom House Museum you can see the multiple bullet holes. A reminder of the race riots that took place there in the 60's & 70's.
Im willing to predict that this town is gonna get VERY famous. Some hollywood director is gonna see what i see. This is the setting for "The night of the living dead 3." am i the only one who sees the potential of whats going to happen here?
@TheWaterlily2012 I think they are both worth saving; cairo, despite its awful past and how crime ridden it is, it really was a beautiful city. The architecture is beautiful and amazing. There are some of the fanciest buildings I've ever seen down there. The city of Cairo really is a photographers paradise. What this town needs is some billionaire to rehab the whole place. Some of the buildings look like they could be $500,000+ houses if fixed properly. I've been there, and it really is sad.
silverbird58 I feel for you. I'm leaving my home of 60 years. Nothing left after the logging, stripping, mountain top removal, hundreds of oil and chemical spills and fracking. The mountains and streams I ran as a kid are gone, and you can hardly recognize where you are in some places.
I grew up there, & it's painful to see it now. The fat cats in town fought to keep any new businesses from coming in, as they were afraid it might take a dollar or two out of their pockets. Then many like myself, didn't want to raise our own children surrounded by the hate and ignorance that is still there, and left. Just saw an example last week when a former Cairo resident went ballistic when a black family moved into her neighborhood in the community she moved to. So glad I left.
Hi I love this video. I recently stumbled upon Cairo while on a road trip. I play in a band called Alien Knife Fight. We'd like to shoot a video/short film there. I'm wondering if you'd be interested in helping us . Many thanks. Great work!!! -Monique Ortiz
I grew up here and he shows one street. You should go visit the people there and not try to portray just the suffering. If you did not grow up there or know the people who live there, try not to judge. I find this video very misinforming and kind of disrespectful. You drive through and suddenly you know the town. I disagree.
i grew up in cairo during the 70's and it was a pretty good place to live, but there were many racial issues to deal with so i had to move up north were i had a better chance at finding work. it was hard for blacks to get jobs.
I remember Cairo in the 50's. Everyone from Kentucky, and Missouri, went there to shop. It was a real busy town. Then, Koen and others ruined the town and helped destroy any and all prosperity.
Hoards of police in Cairo? I think there's only one full time officer and the other 4 are part time. You may have seen the Alexander Co. Sheriff deputies there since Cairo is the county seat. They are hard up for revenue so don't hesitate to speed through town! Every dollar counts!
gooseripper- how dose Preston Ewing have any thing to do about the way Cairo is today, not realy understanding that one if your going to pull a name out the blame hat how bout Al Moss??
@kb4iuj exactly problem is in every state they support the big city to those of Illinois they only care about Chicago, and Springfield; they figure ah Cairo don't mean anything which is said because people there pay Illinois taxes
I served in the National Guard in Cairo from 1977-1993. The 1344th Trans. Co. The 1244th Trans. Co & The 130th inf. Det.1. You can see the beautiful armory in the video built in 1936 if I recall. The state has abandoned it & donated it to the city. I drove through the town recently,& it is far worse shape now than it is in this video. Many of the business' places I remember are gone,just to name a few...The What-a Burger on the north side of the floodwall..The 51 Drive in located close by that...The Nu-Diner on the south end...The True Value store..Glens Truck Stop adjacent to the interstate..the Gem theater. I took my physical to join the Guard at the hospital there which is also shown in the video. Thanks for posting...maybe there are others out there from my old National Guard Unit. BTW..the music was perfect for the video.
My grandfather's antique store can be seen at 2:15. Back then it was all picture window displays and not boarded up. They lived in the apartment upstairs with my aunts and uncles. My uncle Tommy fell out of the 2nd story window when he was a toddler. Scraped him up but no broken bones. My sister and I were born in that hospital when it was called Saint Mary's Hospital. I'm glad they showed the bridge to Kentucky, because that's where my sister and I grew up. The little village called Wickliffe Kentucky is 5 miles past the end of the bridge.
I was born and raised in Olive Branch Illinois which is really close to Cairo. My cousin is the att. there. My mom and grandma worked at the courthouse there. I remember going there all the time when I was little..
So little left of this town, so sad. I was there 8/25/14 a lot of this is gone now. I lived there in the early 60s.
Yeah, we used to pass through here every summer on vacation, it was a pretty place to drive around.
Brilliant work.
Heartbreaking and stunning.
Superb job.
Very good and interesting video-eeerie song too! Cairo IL looks like a little piece of Detroit was dropped into the bottom of Illinois!
My Great Grandfather owned a grocery store in 1915 I have the cash register and meat slicer and a good picture of it on the inside
It's sad what has happen to this place. In '96 I was part of a group that did volunteer work for about a month in S. Illinois and we spent 10 days in Cairo. We met some really good people during our time there. Some of my favortie memories take place in Cairo. I always wondered how the place was all these years later. I always hoped this place would make a comeback.
Breaks my heart my family the knights, moyers are from cairo dad was born there in that old hospital in 1943 grandmother was born there in like 1916 grandpa in 1912 great grandparents ran a tobacco shop there roots run deep there lots of kin folks there
Moved away 2 years ago... I only visit every now and again for family only. The history of this place is amazing but seeing the buildings during my visits only makes my heart ache at the current situation of this once great town...
Thanks for the video! Glad you captured it before it was gone. That yellow brick building @2:31 was the McKinley Interurban station, the building that stored the street trolleys built in 1910. Really neat video!
My grandparents and family members used to tell me that Cairo was the place to go "back in the day". I used to go to Cairo every weekend
Excellent video.
Haunting images.
We went through Cairo today on the way home from Missouri. Took some photos.
Everything looks the same as in the video. Cairo is ne of the saddest places I've ever been through.
Such magnificent structures destroyed by neglect.
Thanks for posting.
if someone with alot of money could rebuild it and bring it up to date some that would be amazing.
Down town looks like a war zone, except for no active combat.
@1967mustanggta I was born there, It was a wonderful small town. We walked downtown, to the park, to church. to Shemwell's bar-b-que. I will always love Cairo for what it was and what it meant to me and my family. My Grandpa McGruder was the meterologist in Cario.
What happened to Cairo? Back in the early 1970s we used to travel to Indiana and Wisconsin every summer via I-57. I-57 had no river crossing yet, so we had to cross on US62 then into Cairo. What a bustling town that was back then! I bet that corner drive-in restaurant not there anymore is it?
+Robert Hughey You have raised a good point. Cairo's main reason for being 50+ years ago was the bridges over the Ohio and the Mississippi. When I24 was built from Paducah to Carbondale, I57 from I55 to Carbondale, and the Dyersburg spur from northwest TN to northeast AK, Cairo IL lost its reason for being and turned into a ghost town. The problem is especially bad given the racial tensions there.
+alnot01 I loved Cairo when I was a kid. I thought it was so neat getting to see the two major rivers come together. I remember Dad stopping at this drive-in, where we ordered lunch on our return trip home. They had the menu painted on large pieces of plywood.
Its sad. I am originally from Tamms which only 7 miles away from Cairo. I used to go there all the time.
I wonder if Cairo has ever been used as a setting for a post apocalyptic movie.
Beautifully done.
what a lovely video!!i think alot of these little places could be revived if people are sent there in times of disasters (hurricanes,floods,etc) and given funds to help rebuild the homes they are given...
I less born and raised in Cairo.. Moved after my mom and dad passed when I was 13..moved back when I was about 20. no jobs there that one reason that the town is almost a ghost town now
This is a good place to visit. Anyone who lived a sheltered life in the 50's-80's could use a dose of this place. Spend some time talking with some of the old folks and you can really learn something.
I was born in Cairo I was born at St Mary's hospital 1961
I lived near Cairo and it has sadly been in decline for decades. Too sad, a good place at one time.
tbh how can anyone not want to live in cairo after watching this
I love Cairo! I'm going down for the fourth. MOst of my lives down there. It's boring as hell sometimes but we(family) always make it fun. You shoulda showed pictures of the underground prison. It's a very historic town all they need is a damn Mc donalds for when I get the late night munchies when I'm down there. Oh and they have little hole in the wall clubs too. It's aiight. Lil old Cairo... I still love to look around when I go down there.
Have a relative who's lived there for many years...still does. Everyone calls him 'Red' (AKA Vincent Doss) owner of Cairo Music Sales. I haven't visited there since 85. Probably the richest man in town...he owns the airport and most of the aircraft there as well.
So sad. A town, on the confluence of 2 mighty rivers, should be as big, if not bigger and wealthier, than St. Louis or New Orleans.
I grew up 20 miles from Cairo. My grandparents lived there. Many wonderful memories from late 70's/80's. Saw my 1st movie at the Gem theater when I was 5. My cousins and I got to go see Pete'a Dragon. There was a bakery, Eddie's Pastry, they had a butter top coffee cake (NOT a gooey butter coffee cake, that isn't fit to eat in my opinion) that I could eat my weight in! So yummy. Long ago there was a What A Buger just before you went under the trussel into town that had the best burgers. I remember Mack's BBQ, the OLD Shemwells BBQ (not the place that is still there today, no comparison) and don't forget The Turf, which was a bar but had the BEST pizza ever!
Today Cairo doesn't even have a grocery store, just a Dollar General. No fresh meat or vegetables unless you drive 30 mins to MO or KY. Poverty abounds. So sad. There should be no reason whatsoever for that town to be in the pitiful condition it is. I can only assume corruption is to blame. In fact, if you dig deep enough you will find that was the case with the public housing commission, they were happily taking the governments money without any upkeep or maintenance. Eventually the public housing was condemned and razed. Many families left without a home.
The town is still full of wonderful people just a sad state the town is in.
Lots of love to the wonderful people of the deepest part of Southern Illinois.
We used to drive thru Cario on the way to central IL as a kid. My mother would always stop at a restaurant downtown for lunch. She went there as a child in the 1920s and took us there. I wish I knew what the name of the restaurant was? It had red brick walls and big ceiling fans. It looked like it was built in the 1800s. Maybe some of you old timers remember it?
Grew up just up the road in Mounds late 50's to early 70's. Cairo was already on the decline then as well as Mounds and Mound City both which look pretty much the same now.
I was through all three towns in Jan of 2012 as i was returning to AZ from Nashville...just a small detour to pick up some Shemwells BBQ and sauce and all three look pretty miserable.
Still have a few friends that live in the area i visited but will be a while before i'm around there again.
just wondering what cairo looked like since my great grandfather is from there. and i'm tracing my roots
Cairo needs to be revived somehow. This is depressing seeing all those abandoned buildings.
Many of the buildings in this video have since been demolished. There will be no revival.
OK, I did your whole "what if your hometown..." now look at it my way, in my eyes. My family's chemical business REVOLVES around people in the spillway that use our chemical and our fertilizers, and we own a sizable portion of the spillway as well. What if your family's income was sizably, not completely, but sizably, from the spillway, would you not want the spillway saved?
It looks like everyone just up and left.
In Mark Twain's time, Cairo was a very important port-in the days of the riverboat steamers. It began its decline in the 1930s, as rail shipping took over from riverboats. There is simply no need for it anymore-and be advised that the Mississippi/Ohio Rivers flood periodically-so that makes the city even less viable.
I remember in the 50's a man caught a catfish where the rivers met, Laid it out in the back of his pick up and the thing stretched the whole lenght of his PU bed and that a true fish tale. I would have given the same odds of catching a job then as I would for the fish. Thats what brought out the bitterness the simple stress of surviving. It has such historic beauty mixed with such sad times.
I noticed the fire engines in the front yard at 5:58, does Cairo have an active fire dept.?
7:41 the landscape is like torn off a painting; Sad & Beautiful.
This is really sad.
cool video bro, will be coming there to film hope we can be youtube budies CJ THE TRAVELING MAN
its all good and i agree with you the railroad and river commerce, its no reason that cairo shouldn't be as big as Paducah or Cape..
This was a really cool video! I think I'll get some of my friends to help me make one like this...
This looks like a fun place to explore with your friends for a few days, I kinda want to go now...
This will be common place in America!
Yes, Cairo has a fire department. It's mostly paid on call personnel. They have just what they need to cover most residential house fires but, I think they are a little short in fighting industrial fires. There isn't a lot of industry there to begin with but, rail and barge traffic does pass through.
IIBasemanII: Decatur, IL is East of Springfied in central Illinois. Cairo, IL is the further point South in Illinois. It sits on a peninsula at the convergence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. It's a very sad and depressing place seemingly forgotten by the rest of the State. I do not recommend visiting Cairo.
Tom C.
Bull Valley, IL
I forgot to mention ---it's not that there's no industries there----it's because the large majority of the people didn't want to work and the industries couldn't get rid of them, so they had to pack up and move elsewhere with their companies. East St Louis has access to many jobs---but once there is a way of life you're comfortable with, it's the path you tend to follow. I feel for the ones who really are stuck and want to better themselves.
Haunting melody 4 wats2come
Believe me, I am in favor of the farms, too. Just, I think that many of the houses there, if fixed up could be expensive houses. I live up in Saint Louis, and there are houses in Kirkwood which are selling for like 400,000 dollars and the architecture doesn't come close to the cairo houses. This whole flooding deal this past year was awful. There are many people who live in cairo and their neat houses as well as many farmers who need land, and the people who need food. Its sad both ways.
Wow! Im from Chicago but moved to Sterling rock falls area and hated it because of such deadness. This is terrible and a rotten shame. Beautiful mansions and worthless.
It's virtually an abondon town let the rivers take it back
There are a lot of old farm towns like this in Oklahoma and Kansas. There are old buildings everywhere, completely empty. No new houses have been built in 50-60 years. Maybe 300 people live there, when once it was 3,000. Cairo sticks out in my mind because of an infamous general who made a name for himself there...U.S. Grant.
Great video!!
@ephesus Accompanied with the hill billy banjo music. Awesome! haha
Daytripped to Cairo, Illinois today. Creepy, creepy feel. Almost no signs of commerce, except for the hordes of police looking for someone to go 30.00001 MPH so they can write a revenue-producing ticket. Fort Defiance State Park, however, was pretty, and an interesting geographical point of America (the rivers were pretty high today).
the music makes this a meme
Cairo has the best low income dental clinic in SI. They pulled my wisdom tooth. :)
But yea its a crying shame what happened to that city. It now looks more like Silent HIll.
i remember going through cairo on the way from indiana to texas and back quite a few times in the 60s. once dad was going to stop for the night and at the gas station asked the guy where would a good place be. he said it would be best to just keep on driving. there was going to be trouble that night. they were expecting more fighting.....so we moved on. it was falling apart then. at future city there somebody wrote on the city limits sign; FUTURE CITY (only time will tell).......
RIP Cairo! Good night, sweet prince!
Preston Ewing stood up against racism and bigotry. The way Cairo is today has little to do with one man's behavior alone. it's too late to name names!
Most of the problems in Cairo today are due to demographics.
This may be a stupid question, but could you give me the artist / title for the banjo music?
Excellent video of a once great bustling community. I was in the National Guard unit in Cairo for 15 years(1977-1992) and saw it's slow decline. I visited/patronized many of the shops & stores shown in the clip.On the north side of town in the 70's there was a drive-in theater & a What-a-burger. If you look closely at the Custom House Museum you can see the multiple bullet holes. A reminder of the race riots that took place there in the 60's & 70's.
Im from Cairo I was born at st Mary's hospital in 84
Looks lively in this video compared to now. Less than half the population now than what's posted in this video.Far less buildings too.
Im willing to predict that this town is gonna get VERY famous. Some hollywood director is gonna see what i see. This is the setting for "The night of the living dead 3." am i the only one who sees the potential of whats going to happen here?
@TheWaterlily2012 I think they are both worth saving; cairo, despite its awful past and how crime ridden it is, it really was a beautiful city. The architecture is beautiful and amazing. There are some of the fanciest buildings I've ever seen down there. The city of Cairo really is a photographers paradise. What this town needs is some billionaire to rehab the whole place. Some of the buildings look like they could be $500,000+ houses if fixed properly. I've been there, and it really is sad.
Cairo is a sad mess now...at least the bridges to & fro are way kewl!
I am watching this in 2021. It is far worse now than when this video was made.
Now the town is down to 1800.
name of the song???
Pablo Tupone death music
what's goin' on? what happend to this city?
The mayor here in Possum Trot, Ky lives in a house worse than any showed in this video. I may take my family to Cairo for vacation, next year.
silverbird58 I feel for you. I'm leaving my home of 60 years. Nothing left after the logging, stripping, mountain top removal, hundreds of oil and chemical spills and fracking. The mountains and streams I ran as a kid are gone, and you can hardly recognize where you are in some places.
Freeside?
Life after people-Cairo,IL
I grew up there, & it's painful to see it now. The fat cats in town fought to keep any new businesses from coming in, as they were afraid it might take a dollar or two out of their pockets. Then many like myself, didn't want to raise our own children surrounded by the hate and ignorance that is still there, and left. Just saw an example last week when a former Cairo resident went ballistic when a black family moved into her neighborhood in the community she moved to. So glad I left.
Interesting video, if one ignores the music and some melodramatic captions.
Civil rights progress. Freedom writers and Preston Ewing is what happened to Cairo. PERIOD !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sounds like what happened to East St. Louis----soooo sad!!
Hi I love this video. I recently stumbled upon Cairo while on a road trip. I play in a band called Alien Knife Fight. We'd like to shoot a video/short film there. I'm wondering if you'd be interested in helping us . Many thanks. Great work!!! -Monique Ortiz
Monique Ortiz I'm from cairo born on 21st street
For a moment I thought I was watching a city in Russia or Zimbabwe
Win some, lose some. No guarantees.
What this town needs is a good gay disco!
Last I heard the population is now (2022) about 1700.
I grew up here and he shows one street. You should go visit the people there and not try to portray just the suffering. If you did not grow up there or know the people who live there, try not to judge. I find this video very misinforming and kind of disrespectful. You drive through and suddenly you know the town. I disagree.
Sorry let me back up. It was the railroad that killed river commerce that thusly killed Cairo. My mistake I apologize
Has potential
Have you seen a little girl? Short, black hair? About seven years old?
i grew up in cairo during the 70's and it was a pretty good place to live, but there were many racial issues to deal with so i had to move up north were i had a better chance at finding work. it was hard for blacks to get jobs.
I remember Cairo in the 50's. Everyone from Kentucky, and Missouri, went there to shop. It was a real busy town. Then, Koen and others ruined the town and helped destroy any and all prosperity.
Reminds me of silent hill.
I have been to the real Silent Hill. Friend of mine and I went in late was
Spooky!
tear the buildings down rebuild the city by selling the land to investors
@1967mustanggta check out scott doody, cairo 2011
someone has to care someone pray to rise this town up move it like they did Valmeyer Illinois truth
He/she was joking about Silent hill yknow...
Hoards of police in Cairo? I think there's only one full time officer and the other 4 are part time. You may have seen the Alexander Co. Sheriff deputies there since Cairo is the county seat. They are hard up for revenue so don't hesitate to speed through town! Every dollar counts!
gooseripper-
how dose Preston Ewing have any thing to do about the way Cairo is today, not realy understanding that one if your going to pull a name out the blame hat how bout Al Moss??
one word SKATE!
Coming soon oh wait no most town are already starting to look just like this
@kb4iuj exactly problem is in every state they support the big city to those of Illinois they only care about Chicago, and Springfield; they figure ah Cairo don't mean anything which is said because people there pay Illinois taxes