Cairo, Illinois Was Once A Booming City — Until Racist Violence Destroyed The Entire Town

Published January 24, 2019
Updated March 13, 2024

Despite its former promise, deep-seated racial tensions would eventually devastate the town of Cairo, Illinois, rendering it nearly abandoned today.

Cairo In 1861
Fort Defiance Cairo
Union Hospital And Other Buildings
Quartermaster Stores Civil War
Cairo, Illinois Was Once A Booming City — Until Racist Violence Destroyed The Entire Town
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Named for the city in Egypt, Cairo, Illinois (pronounced CARE-o), began as a small town with big dreams. Perched at the junction of the Mississippi River and the Ohio River, it seemed strategically placed to become a major hub — and some even allegedly suggested that it become the capital of the United States. But Cairo's rosy future never materialized.

Today, the city is nothing more than a ghost town. Shuttered buildings line its streets, and Cairo has suffered a steady drop in residents for most of the 20th and 21st centuries. Its population, which peaked around 15,000 people in the 1920s, has since plummeted to less than 2,000 souls.

So what happened?

The reasons for Cairo's decline are myriad. It has a difficult climate, the area has been prone to flooding, and it's been overshadowed by larger cities. Cairo also suffered from a spate of bad luck, like when a railroad bridge was built in nearby Thebes, robbing Cairo of its dreams of being a railroad hub.

But perhaps the greatest factor in Cairo's decline was its racial strife. After new Black residents poured into the city during and after the Civil War, Cairo became the site of horrifying racial violence. Its unwillingness to change over the next century, especially in terms of desegregating public spaces and establishing fair hiring practices, also rang the city's death knell.

This is the story of Cairo, Illinois, from its promising beginnings to its status as an American ghost town today.

The Establishment Of Cairo, Illinois

Commercial Avenue In Cairo, Illinois

Wikimedia CommonsCairo's main street, Commercial Avenue, during the height of the port town's economic prosperity. 1929.

Before it became Cairo, Illinois, the area was a fort and tannery for some of the first French traders who arrived in 1702, but their operation was cut short after Cherokee Indians slaughtered most of them. A century later, the area at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers became the subject of Lewis and Clark's first scientific study.

Fifteen years after that, John G. Comegys of Baltimore bought 1,800 acres there and named it "Cairo" in honor the historic city of the same name on the Nile Delta in Egypt. Comegys hoped to turn Cairo into one of America's great cities, but he died two years later — before his plans could be realized. The name, however, stuck.

It wouldn't be until 1837 when Darius B. Holbrook entered the town that Cairo really took off. Holbrook more than anyone else was responsible for the town's establishment and early growth.

As president of the Cairo City and Canal Company, he set a few hundred men to work constructing a small settlement including a shipyard, various other industries, a farm, a hotel, and residences. But Cairo's susceptibility to flooding was a major obstacle in establishing a permanent settlement, which faltered at first as the population fell by more than 80 percent.

Indeed, not everyone shared Holbrook's optimism. When Charles Dickens visited Cairo in 1842, he described it as as a "detestable morass," and a "breeding-place of fever, ague, and death." He purportedly based the hellish city of Eden in his novel Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-1844) on Cairo.

But Holbrook remained optimistic. Despite earlier disappointments, he next sought to add Cairo as a station stop along the Illinois Central Railroad. By 1856, Cairo was connected by rail to Galena in northwest Illinois, and levees had been constructed around the town for transportation.

This set Cairo on the path to becoming a boom town within just three years. Cotton, wool, molasses, and sugar was shipped through the port in 1859 and the following year, Cairo became the seat of Alexander County.

Conflict During The Civil War

General Ulyssess Grant

Wikimedia CommonsGeneral Ulyssess S. Grant used Cairo, Illinois as a strategic advantage against the Confederates because of its location.

By the outbreak of the Civil War, Cairo's population was at 2,200 - but that number was about to explode.

The city's location along both a railway and a port was strategically important, and the Union capitalized on this. In 1861, General Ulysses S. Grant established Fort Defiance at the tip of Cairo's peninsula, which operated as an integral naval base and supply depot for his Western Army.

Union troops stationed at Fort Defiance swelled to 12,000. Unfortunately, this occupation by Union troops meant that much of the town's trade by rail was diverted to Chicago.

Meanwhile, it is suspected that Cairo operated as a safehold along the Underground Railroad. Many African-Americans who escaped the south and made it into the free state of Illinois were then transported to Chicago. By the end of the war, more than 3,000 escaped slaves had settled in Cairo.

With burgeoning population and commerce, Cairo was poised to become a major city, with some even suggesting it should become the capital of the United States. But the troops did not like the humid climate made worse by the muddy low-lying land that was so susceptible to flooding.

"Our life at Cairo was disagreeable to an extent that cannot be realized easily," future congressman George Boutwell remarked.

As a result, when the war ended, the soldiers packed up and went home.

Racial Tensions And Lynchings

Despite the post-war population exodus, Cairo's location and natural resources continued to attract breweries, mills, plants, and manufacturing businesses. Cairo also became an important shipping hub. By 1890, the town was connected by water and seven railroads to the rest of the country and acted as an important way station of sorts between larger cities.

But during those prosperous years of the 1890s, segregation took root and Black residents (making up about 40 percent of the population) were forced to build their own churches, schools, and so on.

Local African-Americans also formed the bulk of the unskilled labor force and these men were highly active in unions, strikes, and protests that campaigned for equal rights in education and employment. Such protests also demanded black representation in local government and the legal system as the black population grew more and more.

Cairo was dealt a hard blow in 1905 when a new railway system opened up the neighboring town of Thebes as a port of trade. The competition was devastating to Cairo and white business owners faced a severe downturn and began taking out their frustration on black business owners, setting the stage for tension and violence.

That violence escalated on Nov. 11, 1909, when a black man named Will "Froggy" James was convicted for the rape and murder of Annie Pelley, a local 24-year-old white shop clerk in a dry goods store. Expecting violence, the sheriff hid James in the woods. This was to no avail.

James was discovered by the mob and dragged to the town's center at 8th and Commercial Street. A rope was tied around his neck, and James was lynched at around 8 p.m. from the steel arches that spanned the intersection. But the rope snapped.

When James plummeted to the ground, still apparently alive, the angry mob riddled his body with hundreds of bullets. They then dragged him to the site of Pelley's death and burned him before a crowd of some 10,000 people. (Cairo's population in 1910 was just over 14,000 people.)

Lynching Of William James

Wikimedia CommonsThe lynching of William "Froggy" James in Cairo. 1909.

James's burned head was stuck on a pole in Candee Park, and the rest of his body were grabbed as souvenirs by the bloodthirsty crowd. But their bloodlust was unsatiated.

A section of the mob next marched to the county jail and abducted Henry Salzner, who was charged with murdering his wife with an ax. Salzner was ripped from his cell, dragged to the town center, lynched, and shot. The mayor and chief of police remained barricaded in their homes.

Illinois Governor Charles Deneen was forced to call in 11 companies of the National Guard to thwart the chaos.

Unfortunately, this incident marked just the beginning of racial violence in Cairo, Illinois. The following year, the sheriff's deputy was killed by a mob attempting to lynch a black man for stealing a white woman's purse.

By 1917, Cairo, Illinois developed a violent reputation as the town with Illinois' highest crime rate, one that stuck even decades later. By the late 1930s, Cairo had both the highest murder rate in Illinois and a high rate of sex workers. Mired in the depths of the Great Depression, businesses shuttered and many residents left. In the 1950s, the town would also become a hotspot of illegal gambling and bootlegging.

However, racism would ultimately lead to the town's demise.

Cairo's Residents Resist The Civil Rights Movement

Civil Rights Demonstration

Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst LibrariesA civil rights demonstration in Cairo, Illinois. 1962.

Like in towns and cities across the country, Black residents of Cairo pushed for equal treatment during the 20th century. In 1946, Black teachers in Cairo filed a lawsuit to demand equal pay. They were defended by none other than future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, then the chief counsel of the NAACP.

Hattie Kendrick, one of the plaintiffs, later recalled the demeaning way Marshall was treated by the defense attorney.

"Thurgood and this other attorney were being called 'boys' by the defense attorney," she said, according to the Cairo Association Of Teachers.

"He went on about how only a 'brilliant attorney' like the one who'd won a case like this in Tennessee could win this one. After he finished, Thurgood got up and bowed to him and thanked him, saying: 'I am that qualified, brilliant attorney who handled that case'. The whole courtroom burst into laughter."

In 1952, further efforts were made to integrate Cairo's schools. But though the Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education ruled that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional in 1954, Cairo's had segregated schools for Black students until 1967.

Indeed, the town remained stubbornly segregated. Instead of hiring Black residents in the 1960s, businesses in Cairo instead brought in white employees from neighboring states like Kentucky and Missouri. When Black residents protested against the city's segregated public swimming, it became a private "club" to keep them out. And when that didn't work, the city shut it down and filled the pool with concrete.

Cairo's racist policies even attracted the attention of the state government. When banks in the city refused to hire Black residents, the state threatened to withdraw its financial support.

Boarded Up Buildings In 2020

formulanone/Wikimedia CommonsBoarded up buildings in Cairo in 2020.

But it was the suspicious death of 19-year-old black soldier Robert Hunt while on leave in Cairo in 1967 that finally did the town in. Black residents did not believe that the soldier had committed suicide in his jail cell after being arrested on disorderly conduct charges, as the coroner had reported. Black protestors faced violent opposition from white vigilante groups and soon the Illinois National Guard was once again called in and was able to stop the violence after a few days of fire bombings and shootouts in the streets.

In 1969, the Washington Reports that Cairo suffered through 170 days of reported sniper fire. Between 1968 and 1972, the town had such a reputation that its high school teams played every game as an away game — no other high schools would willingly come to Cairo.

During that time, in 1969, a new vigilante group called the White Hats also formed. They threatened any Black residents who dared gather at sports games, parks, or for marches. In response, black residents formed the United Front of Cairo to end segregation. The United Front boycotted white-owned businesses but the white residents refused to give in and one by one, businesses began to close.

Abandoned Business In Cairo

carlfbagge/FlickrAn abandoned business in downtown Cairo, Illinois.

In April of 1969, Cairo's streets resembled a war zone. The White Hats were ordered to disband by the Illinois General Assembly but still, white residents resisted. The town entered the 1970s with less than half of the population it had in the 1920s. With continued shootings and bombings fueled by racial unrest, most businesses closed and those determined to hold on were boycotted.

Cairo, Illinois limped on into the 1980s and remarkably still holds on to this day — in name, at least. The downtown sits abandoned and the signs of its once great economic promise are long gone. The city's violent and racist history has snuffed out any hope for progress. Some new businesses open up but are soon closed, and tourism is not actively promoted. The population, which peaked at around 15,000 residents in the 1920s, sits somewhere under 2,000, less than one-fifth of what it was a century ago.

In the gallery above, discover the rise and fall of Cairo, from its hopeful beginnings to its fate as a ghost town. Today, the abandoned, once-prosperous streets of Cairo, Illinois serve as a sad monument to the destructive forces of racism.


After this look at Cairo, Illinois, view some of the most powerful photos that capture the struggle of the civil rights movement. Then, check out appallingly racist ads from decades past.

author
Daniel Rennie
author
Daniel Rennie is a freelance writer residing in Melbourne, Australia.
editor
Kaleena Fraga
editor
A staff writer for All That's Interesting, Kaleena Fraga has also had her work featured in The Washington Post and Gastro Obscura, and she published a book on the Seattle food scene for the Eat Like A Local series. She graduated from Oberlin College, where she earned a dual degree in American History and French.