CAIRO, Illinois: EERILY EMPTY Town Is Almost Totally Abandoned, Despite Its Fascinating History 

Watching this video and surprised that you pronounced Cairo correctly and not like the city in Egypt. There is another town close to Cairo that is the kitty litter capitol of America, my ex brother in law was sent there to work on an army corp of engineers project back in the mid 90’s and we visited him there a few times

My mother was born here in 1936. I remember visiting in the 60s. It was called "Little Egypt." We would stay at my grandmother's sister's house, eating fried catfish sandwiches with homemade hotsauce on white bread. There'd be sweetened sun tea and lemonade. It wouldn't be very cold (we only got one ice cube each) but it was cool and wet. Being in Cairo in the summer was unlike anything I've ever felt, before or since. Crazy Uncle Boots used to say they lived in the devil's kitchen. I remember impoverished streets and homes that had once seen better days long before I knew the right words and the reasons why. I remember trying to sleep in a hot stuffy room, praying for a breeze to lift old, yellow lace curtains hanging in the open window. To this day, I don't know if I fell asleep or simply passed out due to the heat. I remember hearing my parents talking with great aunts and uncles mixed together with the incessant drone of cicadas while they sat out on the front porch. I remember my Aunties Lou and Erlister saying how bad things had gotten there for 'the colored folk' and that they were looking to leave. I remember them talking about MLK. We had family in Chicago. They eventually moved there but they never were able to convince Uncle Boots to leave. They used to whisper he wasn't right in the head after the war. I didn't understand then what that meant. I liked Uncle Boots. He used to sneak me hard candy. I didn't know it then but that would be the last time I would ever see him. It would also be one of the last times I would visit Cairo. I reckon that Cairo has been dying for perhaps longer than it was ever alive. I would also speculate that it will still be dying long after we're gone. Watching this video was bittersweet. So many memories . . .

I’m actually the Ups driver in Cairo. I have been for a few years now. You know I was almost talked out of taking the route. I’m glad I stayed. My customers are wonderful. A misunderstood area with a dense history!

On many a night, my Navy buddy from Cairo, Russell Mertz, told me all about his hometown as we sweated through another night in the Philippines. Russell was a great storyteller. The Gem Theater...Russell worked there in his younger years. Loved seeing this. We stayed in touch for 50 years. Finally got to see him just before he passed. So glad we got to see each other one last time.

My daughter was in college in Chicago and we drove from Texas to bring her home due to Covid. We LITERALLY almost ran at of gas in Cairo. We were in a panic because we couldn’t find an operating gas station. Never let it get below 50 miles to empty any longer. The GPS sent us to a little convenience store and the guy working said they hadn’t sold gas in 20 years. 😱

“I don’t know what people do for food and groceries” you had already answered your own question: Dollar General. Targeting the deepest parts of rural America is how that company has expanded to over 13,000 locations. They find dying towns whose last grocery store closed years ago, open shop, and offer reasonably priced food, healthy-beauty aids, and home goods. From ketchup to dental floss to cat food to bathroom towels, they really are a modern day general store. Each store provides about 12-ish jobs to the town as well. I worked at a DG for about 2.5 years.

I left Cairo in 1967, when I graduated high school. Cairo is pronounced (CARE ROW) not (KAY ROW). What is not known to the casual traveler is that the entire town is riddled with subterranean caverns. Huge sinkholes have appeared in the main streets making basements and new construction unthinkable. Waters from the Mississippi River on the west and the Ohio River on the east have destabilized the last 3 miles of southern Illinois. We knew this in 1967. Growth stopped in 1920 with the population at 15K. The area flooded in 1937 and again in 2011. The Civil War was the pinnacle of history for Cairo. Farm lands in southern Illinois are fertile from the flooding of the two rivers. Don't mourn for Cairo, Cairo died in the 1870's.

As someone who is fascinated by the USA, more specifically the rural part of the country, I love seeing this type of stuff. It's both sad and fascinating, I would love to travel through all these small towns, witness it myself and talk to the locals and hear their stories.

I have two experiences with Cairo: First was getting a ticket from a state cop as I exited back onto I-57 in 2001. It was literally only for 3 miles over the speed limit as I was accelerating from the exit to meet the speed on the interstate. Second was in 2002 trying to find a gas station at 4am. I pulled into a station that was fully lit at about 11:00pm, but the pumps weren't working and the store was locked. I rolled out of there when a car parked and blocked the exit out of the station. I just hopped the grassy curb and booked it out of there.

Cairo was where Grant's army assembled in preparation for his critically important Vicksburg Campaign. My great-grandfather's 8th Illinois was among the many Union regiments that encamped there.

Every time we drive through this town I'm filled with sadness at its decay. But also each time my husband and I discuss how easy it would be to film a post-apocalyptic movie here. If you avoid the few homes that are kept up, one could imagine the voiceover for the trailer: "In a world ravaged by (insert tragedy here), towns lie in decaying ruins. But one man..." etc.

I'm not sure why, but I find these video fascinating and sad at the same time. Thanks for the mini vacations!

The nearby town of Anna has a rather infamous history of being a sundown town (they say it's an acronym for "Ain't No N-words Allowed")--This area of the state was known to have slave owners before the civil war, even though Illinois was technically supposed to be a free state. Southern Illinois truly is like an entirely different state than the area surrounding Chicago. Even as someone who has lived in IL my entire life, I have an extremely hard time relating to the experiences of people in the more rural areas.

I lived in Cairo until recently. You missed the one nice section of town west of Washington between roughly 25th and 35th sts. Cairo looks pretty much like any other nice small town back in there. They are also supposed to start work on the new Port Of Cairo anyday now. Several companies have already made heavy investments into it so this will happen. They will need a thousand workers for construction alone. This is the biggest thing to happen in Cairo in nearly 100 years. On to some of the negatives. Most of the population loss in the most recent census was due to the demolition of two large derelict projects. Very few were able to find new housing in Cairo so most left. Also local flooding, esp in 2011 drove many from Cairo after it was evacuated. The local electric provider charges 6-7 times the normal rate which is a large part of why bigger houses in particular are vacant. Even 15 years ago there were still many businesses open along the main drag. The town's last grocery store left 6-7 years ago. The areas with biggest employers are in Cape Girardeau MO and Paducah KY, most do their shopping there as well.

My daughter was one of the last children born at the Cairo hospital in 85. It was already partly demolished but was the only place our doctor had privileges, she was a little on the outside of mainstream but a good doctor. I haven't been there in several years but tried to buy a house for my wife's niece a few years back. There were many one time beautiful homes still around and some were being given away. The town still had the remains of many fine brick two and three story buildings. You could still get an idea of what it had been. I've always found it sad, once it's gone it ain't coming back, they don't build that way anymore. 😢

I drove thru Cairo this summer. I couldn't believe that a city in the USA could be in such a dilapidated state. It was truly one of the most depressing things I have ever seen. 😔

Such a great way to preserve American history and educate people the world over. Really enjoy your matter of fact narration and reaction to the things you see. Most of your viewers it seems would never in a million years visit a place like this. Because you take us with you and your camera in tow, the legacy of place like Cairo leaps right off the screen and into our awareness unlike any book or magazine could ever do. Thanks for not using any production music here. It's perfect just the way it is. I'll bet every building/house you've shown us has many amazing stories to tell. If only those walls and yards could talk. Thanks again for doing what you do so well.

Ah Cairo my nemesis. I'm a truck driver and I'll do anything to avoid that route. Sometimes I can't. The bridge is narrow as heck, 82 is a narrow two lane highway with no margin for error or you end up in a ditch. The small winding streets are a maze but I have always been so fascinated by the almost abandoned town. I roll through with my camera and always try to get pictures. Abandoned towns are beautiful in a way. After rolling through I Googled the town and yes a torrid history. Always end up going this way when I'm going to that part of Missouri.

I'm a trucker and 2 years ago we loaded big oversize wind mill tube sections in Cairo off of barges. They came from overseas to New Orleans, then on barges up the river to Cairo, then used big cranes to load onto our trucks and we took them to the windmill sites in Missouri.

I was introduced to Cairo by the author/humorist, Mark Twain. He knew the city well, having spent his younger years on a steamboat plying the Mississippi River. The city is mentioned in both Huckelberry Finn and Tom Sawyer novels.

From what I understand of Cairo, and many other small towns down in the "Lincoln's Chin" region, they are kept alive in large part due to the slew of Corrections facilities nearby. As a former *tourist?* of said facilities in my more youthful spirited years, a lot of the Corrections Officers down there would talk a lot about how their quality of life was so much better than their neighbors due to these jobs. I was always confounded by how much vitriol and contempt they held for the prisoners because they were mostly from Chicago. Most people you meet in those facilities are people who committed some "victimless" crime like driving with no license repeatedly or were caught with some weed, especially in the larger minimum or medium security institutions. They hated us so much and yet our transgressions were the infusion of income that stretched the deaths of these towns into decades instead of years. While down there I picked up on the fact that a majority of the black COs lived in Cairo. Not sure if it's true but I was told that it was one of the first free cities that runaway slaves would encounter on their journey north and as a result a lot of them would stay, settle and rebuild their lives there. It is alarming to learn just how many people are incarcerated down there in towns like Tamms (my old address at 8500 Supermax Rd), Pinckneyville (also an old address of mine), Vienna, Shawnee, etc. One thing I'll never forget is the Shawnee National Forest butting up to a lot of these institutions and the fresh air (if I ever got any)and wildlife that would creep right up to the edge of the prisons. I've hiked and camped out quite a bit down there later in life as a free man and always wanted to visit Cairo but was always afraid to bump into someone who genuinely wronged me as an employee of those institutions and end up right back down there against my will.

This is a beautiful place! I live in PA, For the past 2 years I have lived on 1,500.00/mo that's 18,000.00/yr. This is my choice, I'm 56 and have worked hard all my life, raised 3 boys myself. I saved enough that I could retire early. Now I have time to enjoy my grandchildren. I do not consider myself poor, I have a 1,750 sq ft home, I have 1/4 acre, garden, chickens, rabbits a dog and a cat. It's all about living within your means and being grateful for what you have and knowing that the rat race won't make you happy.

One of the weirdest coincidences about Cairo is that when the last ice age ended, the glaciers' southernmost advance reached as far as Cairo's location, and the last time the sea inundated North America, its northernmost advance was more or less to Cairo's location. 🧐

In the 1950s and '60s (and probably other decades on either side), Illinois's marriage laws were more lenient than nearby Kentucky's regarding minimum age. Consequently, many young couples crossed the river to get married. Between 1973 and 1980, Illinois's drinking laws allowed 19-year-olds to enter bars and drink beer (not hard liquor). Consequently, Cairo had a huge night club (King Tut's) in the 1970s, and young people from surrounding states would come to visit. They didn't just come to drink, however. That was the heyday of disco and King Tut's held many disco dance contests that were taken seriously and attended by superb dancers. The dance floor was packed. Cairo used to perennially have a basketball powerhouse. Today, of course, they are in the lowest tier (single A) enrollment-wise, and average about 20 students per grade. The Guetterman Boys (Guetterman Motors) have been in business of selling cars in Cairo for decades, although I worry about their future. They've always relied on sales to customers in surrounding states. In fact, in 1994, the company trademarked their slogan of "Cross that money-saving bridge". Their tv and radio commercials also point out that Paducah (KY) is only 15 minutes away, at 120 miles per hour! I believe they have satellite locations in scattered towns. Truly 15 miles from Cairo, in Charleston, Missouri, is Reeves Boomland. This is easily the largest display of fireworks I've seen for sale, and it's open year-round (they have many other things in an adjoining building). Sikeston, Missouri (30 miles from Cairo) hosts Lambert's Cafe, the original home of the "throwed rolls". This place is BIG (despite it being called a cafe) and is a must-stop for anyone in the area. An employee will bring hot rolls from the back room and literally throw them across the LARGE dining room to eager diners. Some of the throws are just amazing (considering all the knick knacks hanging from the ceiling)! Occasionally, the pass is not completed (usually the fault of the receiver), and the attempt is repeated. Even without the throwed rolls, the dining experience is amazing with huge portions and "pass-arounds", which are things like fried okra, mac & tomatoes, etc. that are carried by employees in huge stainless steel bowls. The employees walk among the tables and dole out these freebies to anyone who wants 'em.

I got stuck in Cairo with no money for a few days waiting to fix the truck , we were puffing herbs and wicky sticks all over town asking the locals where the pyramids and Sphynx were , they weren't amused

As a truck driver I've passed by the town many times, and usually it's always flooded, I can see why nobody wants to live there. A town that's extremely prone to flooding by the river there is not a good idea

The final nail in the coffin was the Interstate bypassing the town in the late 1970's. I traveled through there many times earlier and Cairo was still the only bridge available so you had to go through town. Every one of those closed businesses used to be packed with locals and travelers. I believe I-57 opened around about 1977 and soon after, the first businesses started pulling out.

It's so sad to see places like this just fall apart. I was curious as to why, so I looked it up on wiccopedia, and here is some of what I found. "From 1967 to 1973, an extended period of racial unrest occurred in the town of Cairo, Illinois. The city had long had racial tensions which boiled over after a black soldier was found hanged in his jail cell. Over the next several years, fire bombings, racially charged boycotts and shootouts were common place in Cairo, with 170 nights of gunfire reported in 1969 alone."😓

So glad that you covered Cairo, IL. Cairo was a major memorable location for me, starting as an infant (first passing thru Cairo in 1954) and throughout my pre-teen childhood years. We lived in Chicago, but since my mother's side was all in Louisiana, we would take at least 2 trips per year between Chicago to just north of New Orleans, either by train or by driving in car. The first 6 or so years were before I-57 was even built, and if we drove we'd take old Hwy 51 all the way, passing right thru Cairo. The train trips had a huge memorable part, as that was back when the Illinois Central 'Panama Limited' (sleeper car train) and the Illinois Central 'City of New Orleans' train (of the infamous Arlo Guthrie song) were in existence. The memorable highlight at Cairo was my parents telling me and my sister "to be ready to see the back & front of the train we were on", as there was a long 90° curve in the railroad tracks at Cairo and as the train was in that curve, we could look out the train window and see nearly the entire front and back halves of the train we were on, while in that long 90° curve. I still recall on an early trip we were taking by car, back in the late 1950's, due to horrendous weather we had to stop overnight and stayed at a motel on Hwy 51 in Cairo, which I have no doubt was the same (long closed) Belvedere Motel you filmed at the 21:09 mark. It's hard to believe that was approx 65 years ago.

Historically, empires collapse on average every 250 years. Watching all the urban decay across this great country makes you wonder if this is the beginning.

When I was a kid in the 60's in West Tennesse we would pass through Cairo going to visit my grandparents in Central Illinois. The interstate was the final blow to Cairo taking revenue away from the city. . I drove through there a year or so ago to see for myself. It's sad to see a historic city crumble.

I'm 69, and it's been a ghost town all my life. Of course, as a child, I thought that meant it had ghosts. We only went there to cross the Mississippi River. We pronounced it Care‐Oh.

Anyone that every read "Huckleberry Finn" knows about Cairo. The river traffic is not near as active as it was 20 years ago. Back in the 70's and 80's most small towns lost their hospitals due to the operational expense. You have several large cities close to Cairo and that is probably the reason they lost the grocery store.

Even with all the dilapidation, there's something special about Cairo. Good vibes.

I used to go there in the early to mid 80’s on school trips to Fort Defiance. It was still a decent town then but drugs and crime got really bad. Lots of people started leaving. The town was almost abandoned completely during the floods in 2011. Sink holes were popping up all over town making it very dangerous. The Main Street you were on used to have a trolley car in the early years. There was a lot of big beautiful homes there when I was a kid but almost all of them are gone now. Very sad… very sad!

I spent a good 6 years working on both the the Illinois section of the Ohio and the Mississippi River up to Alton conducting fish population surveys. I spent many a time in Cairo along with several similar small towns like E-Town, Olmstead, and old Shawneetown. Sure, one might say that they’re all close to ghost towns nowadays but it’s fascinating to think that this area used to be the bustling heart of Illinois at one point. I like to still hope that places like these either grow back up in population or at least be remembered for their importance in U.S. history.

I was born in cairo in 1982 my grandma was the general manager at that dollar general in the 90s gangs have ruined what left of the city

I grew up in southern Illinois and always thought of it as where the midwest meets the south. You should have talked to that guy coming out of his house- he probably would have been happy to have someone to talk to. Many such small towns in the midwest now are full of retired people- the younger folk have moved on.

This was so interesting to me. Thank you for making this video. My father was born in Cairo and lived there where he was a little boy, before his family moved up the river to Alton, IL, just north of St. Louis. He'd be 95 now if he were still alive and would be, I'm sure, astonished to see its current condition. We didn't have any family living in the area but we did visit when I was a kid, so early 70s-ish. It was not in such bad shape then. How sad to see what's become of it.

Used to drive through here when visiting my sister back in the 80’s. This was an almost ghost town back then. The town has been in decline for a very long time.

I have been through Cairo a good many times on my way to Paducah, Ky, by way of Wickliffe. Going through Cairo, at night, on my Harley was an experience. Not a particularly good one, but I lived to tell about it! Cairo, like many of these Mississippi Delta towns are just sad. Once grand little cities, now just remnants of what they were, gone all to staves.

I visited Cairo in late 2020 and it looked something like Kosovo after the bombings, I was completely shocked. Most people know the American heartland's been murdered by 50+ years of steady deindustrialization and outsourcing, but it's only when you actually go see it can the full scope of the human tragedy begin to be understood.

this is yet another town lost to the American roadway. with the Lincoln Highway being routed and gradually built, starting in 1913, river towns that weren’t at the mouth began to die at rapid rates. confluence towns have been thus, ‘abridged,’ from American importance. so unimportant they’ve disappeared almost entirely. thank you for documenting and historicizing this forgotten town!

WHOA, they've cleaned up the state park there a LOT since I went through in Spring of 21! That place was an abandoned wreck, totally overgrown and clearly neglected for years. nice to see it getting some much-needed love, it's a great spot and a fascinating bit of American history.

I’m not Americanbut stayed (work) in the us for almost 6yrs and I love small town vibe, so much so that when we travel we usually take the route of small towns (instead of expressway) eighteenth or or from (to change the scenery). It’s slower than expways but I like driving through them, stopping even. So peaceful, sure it can be boring maybe at times, but I like it. Kind of place where everybody knows everybody. And i feel sad to see some of them being abandoned

The Outsourcing of America has left these once busy little towns all over gutted. We need to bring manufacturing back.

It has the most frightening bridge. I went over it at night on my way to Atlanta, Ga., with my 2 yr. Old. I made it halfway up the bridge and stopped. I backed my car down the bridge. Scariest night of my life

My northern relatives visited southern relatives in Cairo in the 1940's and that is where they first experienced segregated water fountains.

My family was a big road-tripping family and one of my dad's tales he always told about going through Cairo way back when. He thought it was the coolest that he ordered catfish from some joint and having the choice of either catfish from the Ohio River or the Mississippi.

It seems so strange to me that a town built on a major river delta, right on the edge of a bunch of other states, would even be able to fail in the first place. There had to have been some real mismanagement here.

Yep! Same Cairo in the Huck Finn book/movie. It also really puts things in perspective being able to see 3 different states from one spot. Nature doesn't really observe boundaries like we do. Great video, and thanks for posting.

It is a crying shame to see this happen , The town made a mistake of not diversifying its resources and industries to keep going. I hate seeing homes going to waste too. Thanks for the tour.

Cairo, and most of southern IL, has been overlooked by Springfield and Chicago for decades. Sad. It was Jesse Jackson I believe that has a big to-do in Cairo back in the 60’s... it’s went steadily downhill ever since. I hope the new Port will breathe new life into this area, it’s in dire need. IL isnt a business friendly state... businesses leave IL all the time. Taxes are high here. 😞

I rode my bicycle through Cairo on my way to Paducah. You are dead right to call it eerie. The looks I got from the folks that were still in town there were like that of hungry wolves noticing a deer straying from the herd. I beat it out of there super fast. Well, as fast as you can on a bicycle.

Praise God, my Grandmother was born in Cario in 1933, her name was Glodean Harrell, but then it was Glodean Jackson, she looked for her brother for years Walter Jackson, but was unable to find him. I been to Cario as a child maybe once or twice, thank you for the information, it is a very small city. Kisses and be blessed .

Very cool footage! Thank you! 😊👍

I went through cairo some time in the mid 90's and stopped at a gas station right across from Kentucky. I remember in the men's room the sign said don't drink from fawcett. My guess it the reason why there is no business there is everything is cheaper right across the river. Gas prices were 80 cents cheaper in Missouri and Kentucky. It's probably the same with most businesses.

Makes me think of a quote from “Wind, Sand and Stars” by Antoine St. Exupery (1939): “One thing that I had loved in Paraguay was the ironic grass that showed the tip of its nose between the pavements of the capital, that slipped in on behalf of the invisible but ever-present virgin forest to see if man still held the town, if the hour had not come to send all those stones tumbling.”

12:38 Seeing that beautiful theatre shuttered, ah it breaks my heart. I love old American movie theatres, I hope they don't all die out one day.

It looks like a nice town to live. It would look so nice if the homes were renovated and commercial buildings were cleaned up.

You can look forward to most of the towns in Southern Illinois to be ghost towns. Taxes are too high for the majority of the people who live there. The state of Illinois is the most drastic in terms of income disparities between the north and south. So sad. There are so many little towns just like this all over that area.

Thank you for this. My father was born in Cairo in March 1912. He had three sisters. My Grandmother died of the Spanish Flu when he was about 10 and his father took a bad electrical shock on a riverboat and never really recovered several years later. My dad and his baby sister were adopted by a very well-off family in Northern Indiana and lived a much happier life after Cairo. Dad used to tell me that he had several childhood friends and they would go down and climb up on the levee each day and watch the boats. He said all of his friends were black and he wished he could be black too.

I live right along the Ohio River at Louisville Kentucky and I walk my dog along the river every morning. I love to watch the barges moving up and down the river. Thanks for the nice view of the confluence. I've never seen it before.

My grandmother grew up on a farm near there. About a century ago. She never spoke of it, nor visited the area in my lifetime. Which pretty much sums up the issues with the town.

What really strikes me in so many of these towns is the lack of foot traffic and pedestrians! But, I come from a completely different environment. Ive spent most of my adult life in Seattle and Portland. Both are growing, with fantastic public transit, lots of bike riders and people walk to a destination , even if its a half mile away. Inwalk to the store quite often, which is 2.5 miles away. I would much rather walk or ride my bike than drive. I have heard people from the South tell stories of getting in their cars, just to cross the street for lunch, noone walks, noone!

It's amazing how many beautiful, well-kept houses there are! Too bad you didn't stop to talk to that man coming out of his house - I'm sure he would have been able to provide a lot of history about the town.

I have passed over those bridges many many times back and forth from Missouri to Kentucky! The 2024 eclipse will cross over over this town. Love the old 1800 homes! Its so empty now... but you can just see the potential and what used to be!

So sad to see this. Thank you for taking us along in your adventure.

Thank you for making the video for us to see.

Great Video... People didn't believe me when I told them about this town. The Federal Government wanted to flood the town. The only thing that stopped it was the valuable farm land that's next to it. It truly is the lowest point in Illinois in elevation and poverty. Thanks for taking the time to make this video.

Been there many times. Always wondered why the brick buildings were crumbling. Someone told me that the ground was unstable due to mining. Some beautiful homes still in beautiful condition. Runaway slaves poured into Cairo. My dads neighbor in mtn view Missouri is a boat captain, he drives to Cairo for work.

Supposedly, this is the second Cairo. The original town fell into the River during the big earthquake along illinois faultline.

A lot of my family was from here, though they all moved on a long time ago. We used to visit sometimes when I was a kid. I think the last time we were there was maybe 2012, I was about to graduate from college and my grandfather had passed away. We held his celebration of life at Riverlore Manor there. I distinctly remember my older brother and I going to that Dollar General to pick up ice or something and having a kind of scary encounter with someone as we were walking out of there. Our family still has fond memories of Cairo Barbecue Sauce and a special butter coffee cake from there they spent years trying to find the right recipe to make. One of my aunts became a librarian because of her good experiences as a kid at the Cairo public library. The family homes have long since been condemned and torn down but I'm glad I had the chance to see them once before that happened.

This is an important point in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Jim and Huck pass Cairo in the fog. The original plan was to escape south on the raft and take a steamboat up the Ohio at Cairo. Obviously they miss it in the Fog. Twain wrote the book to this point and then put down the manuscript for many years before moving the story down the Mississippi to New Orleans.

My wife grew up there in the 60's and remembers the racial tension and the riots. We have visited Cairo twice since her last residence there, the latest being 2020. It's sad to see a town decay like this.

Great segment, thanks!

I loved the tour of Cairo. What a shame that a bustling little city is just disappearing into the ground.

I was born and raised in Southern Illinois. It's been almost 50 years since I left and it's shocking the changes to Cairo since I was last there.

Yes, there is a lot of history. I went to SIU in Carbondale and one of the best courses was Illinois History taught by the great John Y. Simon the U.S. Grant scholar. I traveled and hitchhiked all over southern Illinois, the eastern most Ozarks, on backroads, dirt roads and through creeks and hiked the River to River Trail from the Ohio to the Mississippi. It’s an amazing beautiful interesting place. I did some volunteer work in Cairo and remember the riots . Movies were made around here with John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart. Now that I’m 70 I’m planning to leave this state, before it gets worse, like many others. Love the tornado at the end, it’s very Illinois.

I drive thru Cairo every year on my way to Missouri. There is another town in Southern Illinois called future city that looks like it never came. It's next door.

I was born and raised in Mississippi, moved North for work in the sixties, lived there until retirement. I made two trips each year, back to see my parents, down interstate 57. I drove through Cario, then across the Ohio. This happened over 35 years. I always stopped in Cario, for gas. As the years went by, I saw the decline of a beautiful town. I retired in 2010, folks are gone, no more trips. It was sad to witness the death of a once important place.

When I was eight years old, my family was driving back from Mexico to Chicago. When hit a bit of bad weather driving over the I-57 bridge there off Cairo. My dad pulled under an overpass to wait out the storm. When it passed we continued into Cairo for gas to find the town almost leveled by a tornado. This breakout of storms is known as, The Marion, Illinois tornado outbreak. We were lucky to live through it. It's a shame to see the town in shambles like that. Another historic landmark lost to time. Thanks for sharing.

Sounds like a good place . I so want to visit. So beautiful

Great commentary. Thanks for the excellent info and tour

This was a very interesting video. I expected Cairo to be far different than it turned out to be. Yes, it is ghostly and there are few businesses. Many houses are abandoned. But I looked really carefully all the while, and there was NO trash. The streets, including the main street, were clean and there was no dumped garbage anywhere. Next to abandoned crumbling houses were well-kept and maintained ones. Every residential street was clean and many yards mowed. The many extremely fancy old houses seemed occupied and well preserved. There were no hoodlums or thug hanging about. The cleanliness of the place amazed me. Compare this to East St. Louis or Camden NJ.

Crazy coincidence that this video just popped up in my recommended (or probably not coincidence at all, but Google spying on me). I'm a trucker and just 3 days ago I passed through here, coming from Wickliffe KY, on my way back to the Chicago area. First time ever driving through here, I remember thinking it was a somewhat charming little town but very empty. I was impressed with the nice architecture of that St Patrick's Church (the same one you passed by). Didn't see much of the residential area of the town though, had no idea it was actually this decayed and on the verge of becoming a ghost town. From the looks of it it was certainly booming a hundred years ago, looks like a bunch of Victorian era houses that have seen better days.

The Ford Dealer in Cairo advertises on the radio to "Cross that Money Saving Bridge to Cairo." Geutterman Ford. The last grocery store, Wonder Market, closed in 2015 so the only thing left is Dollar General. I have attended the Catholic Church, St. Patrick. It was built in 1893 and is a historic building as well. When Cairo had 15,000 people, there were 3 Catholic Churches there. Great video!

I have alot if fond memories of Cairo. I was born there in the mid-fifties; i grew up 10 miles from there in a town called Charleston, MO. At least once a month we would make the quick drive across the VERY narrow Mississippi Bridge to eat BBQ--so much fun! I remember Berkharts (a large factory) that employed alot of people from Cairo and surrounding towns. I think it shut down back in the late sixties, but not for sure of that time limit. For twelve years my parents would go to the Western Auto there to buy our Christmas gifts--it was a happy time back then thanks to all the fine people who lived there during that time. I live in the Southwest part of the United States now and almost 70 yrs old. I find myself thinking about Cairo from time to time and get a tear in my eyes. It is so sad what has become of Cairo.....

Still, it looks way, way better than Pine Bluff, AR. I see a lot of potential for future development, particularly in the area of outdoor recreation. And Cairo is ahead of the game by having already demolished a good part of the downtown blight. Likely won't happen in my lifetime, but...under the right conditions...Cairo has a good chance of re-inventing itself as a good place to live.

Don't let the name of the city fool you either this place isn't full of ancient pyramids its just an abandoned empty ghost town that has no amenities of any kind

All my relatives on my fathers side were from there! The James ‘Panny” and Lulu Johnson family and he worked on the railway, lived in a 2 story house before and after the depression! I have never been there, thanks for the tour!

What a great job thanks for discovering this place

Those victorian homes are lead nightmares. My "starter" home was an 1882 victorian and i learned really fast there wasnt a lot of renovations i could safely do with it (besides painting) unless i wanted to contaminate everything with lead dust or asbestos. They put lead in everything, the paint, the plaster, the finish for the wood floors, even the glass in the windows. While its sad to see those places falling apart, the flip side is they are all major health hazards especially for ppl that cant afford the work needed to make them safe to live in. Fixing up those old homes is a lot of work and lead/asbestos remediation is very very expensive. That might also be partially why theyre just letting those places fall apart, you cant just bulldoze them cuz then the demo workers get exposed to contamination, huge liability issues there so it takes specially trained people.

I drove through Cairo about 15 years ago and it was pretty bombed out back then. It gave me the creeps, and I couldn't wait to get out of it. It looks like something out of the Walking Dead.

I've been to Cairo. I enjoyed every minute of it. Rode camels around the pyramids and toured the national museum.

The drone shots are fantastic, thank you!

Thanks for this! I did a similar tour of Centralia, PA. It’s even more ghost, only 3 or 4 occupied houses because the entire town was condemned so the holdouts are just people refusing to leave. The one thing I would have liked to see here would be you going into one of the few open establishments, buying something and talking to the remaining residents.

We drove the back streets of the town in April. Based on the size of the houses, school, commercial buildings clearly it was a affluent town. It is an odd set-up. Half of the buildings/ houses are well-kept and half are empty. Standing at the rivers confluence is an awesome sight.

THANKS YOU FOR AN INTERESTINGLY WELL PUT TOGETHER VID!!

My family is from Cairo,Illinois. My mother was born there in 1954 they moved right after to Columbus Ohio.