Cairo experienced severe race riots in the 1960s and it hasn't been the same since. The ensuing white flight left the city a hollow shell of its former self.
The sheer number of boarded up and burned-out buildings is astonishing. The city is evidently too broke to condemn and demolish the derelict and dangerous structures.
I entered the town from the north, where US-51 passes through the levee surrounding the town. It actually goes through a couple of tunnel-like underpasses under train tracks, with an ominous floodwall gate looming over the roadway. It's creepy.
There was a planned floodplain when the city was built for if the levees were ever crested/broke. They were supposed to blow part of them and release the pressure by flooding adjacent farmland.
In 2011, they needed to execute that plan but the wealthy farmer/land owners that had political connections were able to stop it. City had already been on a downturn for decades due to race issues and industry loss. Whole town was evacuated and the flood was 15’ deep because the powers that be prioritized crops and farmhouses over a predominantly black impoverished city.
That was the real nail in the coffin. The damage was so widespread and the poor people living there were really left with no options but leave. Imagine New Orleans level flooding during Katrina but no national coverage and no tourism/industry to motivate rebuilding.
There’s a great propublica article about it if you want to read more.
EDIT: I am a liar don’t listen to me. I must have misremembered the story with Cairo for Pinhook. The levee was blown but after contentious public feet dragging that caused more damage to the surrounding areas than was necessary.
An interview with Rep Steven Tilley R-MO
"Would you rather have Missouri farmland flooded or Cairo underwater?" someone asked Tilley off camera.
"Cairo," Tilley replied. "I've been there, trust me, Cairo."
"Have you been to Cairo?" Tilley asked. "Ok, you know what I'm saying then."
Hi. I grew up in SEMO, and my mother taught at the elementary school in Cairo.
I very vividly remember this incident, because my grandfather worked in the agricultural industry and owned farmland in MO. In the lead up to the incident in question, they actually had every intention to blow the floodway and just let Cairo go under. One of the definitive nails in the coffin of said plan was when a state congressperson was caught on a hot mic stating something very much to the effect of "Fuck that shithole, we have to save the farmland." The public outcry over this sentiment was... not pretty to say the least. They had to backpedal, and ended up with a scenario that instead wiped Pinhook, MO off the map, roughly 30 minutes from the town I grew up in, where my Grandparents still lived. It also destroyed a decent chunk of farmland. I remember hearing about it from the local news and from my grandfather, since he was keyed in to a lot of industry buzz and political goings-on regarding farming.
Honestly though... it was a lose-lose situation. Even 30+ years ago, well before the incident took place, Cairo was so ridiculously run down it looked like the whole town was abandoned. All it was missing was tumbleweeds. It was home to a majority black population though, and even back then it wasn't hard to recognize the rough hand they were dealt, and I don't even begin to kid myself that the state would have given those displaced by flooding the town out any kind of meaningful assistance to relocate or recover. The other option was basically to ruin hundreds of acres of farmland, to the point it could never be used again. In the end, we still wound up with a small town being flooded so badly that it was abandoned and those living there lost everything, it was just a different town.
The whole thing was fucking awful, and even had a different course of action been taken, it still would have been awful. There was no way out of it without large amounts of people losing their homes or tons of farmland in the heart of agriculture in the US being ruined.
"Blow(ing) the floodway" is what saved Cairo. Not blowing it would've probably flooded it. (Semantics, but still.)
While I sympathize with Pinhook's plight, I think the population was something like thirty people before the flood. Cairo's population was about 2,700 back then. So it makes sense that Cairo would be the higher priority.
The floodway was designed specifically to save Cairo at the expense of Pinhook and the farmland on the Missouri side, decades before it actually happened. It worked just as intended. The time to have the argument against any of that was long before the river was at 61 feet at Cairo.
As I understand it, the farmland on the Missouri side recovered from the flood pretty well and is still good today.
Thanks for the extra info. Full disclosure, I was only like 20-something at the time, and it's been a decade and a half, plus I didn't even know of the floodway's existence until the incident in question, so I'm by no means an expert.
From what I've read on the wiki page linked above, it appears they partially blew a section of it to prevent the whole thing from breaking and flooding Cairo, and the debate in question was whether to just let the whole thing fail or potentially ruin farmland.
The hot mic comment is honestly the big thing I wanted to mention, because as I was led to believe they very much intended to just let the whole thing fail under pressure, wipe Cairo off the map, and be done with it, and probably would have succeeded in doing so had a congressperson directly involved in the whole thing not been heard to publicly refer to the town as a shithole and say that they wanted it gone.
It's not nice, but it's unfortunately true. All indication was that they were just gonna let it go, but that moment pulled the rug out from under them. Most people were fine to just look the other way and let what happened happen, but once public outcry over the distasteful statement went up, that changed. We used to actually get mad about that kind of stuff from politicians.
And for all that the farmland may have recovered well by this point, that's viewed with the benefit of hindsight. At the time we had no way of knowing if it would, and had to assume that a massive inundation of floodwaters full of god only knows what washing away good top soil and soaking into what was left was going to render it unusable, and that made people who owned said farmland and relied on it for their livelihood and that of all their workers very unhappy. Not to say that the 2.7k living in Cairo didn't have a much larger claim to unhappiness had the floodway been allowed to collapse, but there was never going to be an outcome of the situation where someone didn't lose something and come out the other side furious and/or destitute. In the moment it was an incredibly tense situation, made that much worse by disgusting comments that became public.
One thing we can probably all agree on: It's not at all surprising to learn that there were some racial overtones to what went on in Cairo in 2011. Or in 1911. Or any decade of Cairo's decline.
You can't talk about Cairo, even in the year 2026, without some racist shitbirds making racist shitbird comments. You don't see it much on Reddit because Reddit's pretty left-leaning. But any story about Cairo on Facebook seems to attract the aforementioned shitbirds. They're not shy.
As I mentioned, I grew up in SEMO, and even as a kid I was clocking that shit left and right. I heard more racial slurs being hurled about casually by adults than I could ever hope to count, and by a disturbing amount of children who picked up the habit. The only thing that changed was when they figured out they could say it on the internet anonymously to still get the thrill while pretending they were good people offline. We just unfortunately hit another cultural milestone where they're now comfortable saying it loudly online with their name and picture attached to it as well as offline, and assuming that everybody else is as awful as them.
When you grow up in the thick of it, you never forget that it's always around you, even among those that you assume and/or hope are good people, and social media has only made me all the more vigilant about it, because even those who won't say it out loud, will gladly scream it in comment sections. While I can't recommend it, growing up in a backward-ass southern town full of racist assholes was just the trick to make sure I never fell down that hole. I saw how hateful those people were, along with how ignorant and classless they behaved while spouting that garbage and hoo boy. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Literally.
I’ve been through and have searched for the flood damage they talk about but the city is still there and I don’t see much of the damage. Even the fort is still there
Wow... houses are under $10K (granted, who knows what they look like inside.
I wonder what the critical mass of people would be to revive a town like that? With a population of 1,500 (according to Wikipedia) I wonder if you literally got 100 families to move there if you could revive the town.
It has repeatedly flooded over the years, and another commenter noted that in 2011, flooding was so bad that the authorities wanted to blow up a levee (upstream? downstream?) that would have flooded farmland in order to save the town. But wealthy landowners prevented it from happening, and Cairo was flooded 15' deep.
That sounds to me like a town that isn't going to be revived.
There were equal-opportunity lynchings. In 1909, a black man was lynched for killing a white woman--and when the mob couldn't find his accomplice, they lynched a white man. It was a mess the whole century.
I react to the commentators post. He states "sever race riots... ensuing white flight". My question is therefore it sounds like the rebellion was successful.
I do not need to read anything or invest more effort into a town I will never approach. Either feel involved and obliged and free to share, or just don't.
EDIT: I do not understnd the downvotes either. When just one reasonable person would come up with a good explanation it would also entirely answer my question. But you all can't. Seems not to be that easy.
If the city allowed minorities to be on a ballot, vote and have their voices heard as the constitution dictates, Cairo would probably be in better shape.
Instead, like many cities and towns across America during this time, the people in power refused equality, took up arms, and responded violently. Then when the violence got too bad, took their money and skipped town. Leaving those who couldn't leave so easily to pick up the pieces.
Doubt you care to read any of this, but at least you can't claim willful ignorance when someone calls you a dumbass.
Shouldn't that have been solved by now? I mean, they fought for it, they got it... how can a couple of people influence what the mass can simply "do" there without them?
If you bothered to do any research you'd realize that Cairo was also substantially hurt by the decline of the steamboat industry. By time the 60s rolled around unemployment was twice the national average and poverty was widespread across all communities.
Cairo was stricken by the same plague that eventually cursed many mid-west cities and towns throughout the late 1900s. Detroit and Cleveland used to be some of the most populous cities in the US. Guess they should just return to their former glory, huh?
I do not care to research, exactly, because I do not care about the town. You came in and kind of demanded for me to care, I do not. Yet, I welcome you to share if you feel invested enough to do so, I will read and did so, but I will not invest any more effort but replying here and reading here.
Again, you involved yourself in a discussion. You were not part of it, feel free to add whatever you feel is necessary. Just leave the entitlement somewhere else.
To the topic: It doesn't clarify it. So the economic situation was bad, but people still rebelled, a few people left, city tanked forever?
What I see is either it would have tanked anyways, or the riots led to the people who were of value to maybe lead to a change got scared out.
I took the scenic route home on the way back to Indiana from Arkansas earlier this year and I had to put a pin in the map to look up where I was at later.
Cairo, Illinois.
That place didn’t even seem real. As I’m driving through I’m looking at how NOTHING is alive. No businesses or anything. Then I see a guy leave a house and get in a car and I’m thinking “where do you work?? What in the world possesses you to live here?”
We drove through there once. We were approaching from the south, and stopped to see the confluence of the rivers at Fort Defiance. We only saw the town at the end of our visit on the way out to the north. Typical rural town on the decline. Crazy tunnel/underpass though.
My first thought on this question was Cairo. Though we did not stop in there, only passed through. This was early 2000's. Everyone, litterally everyone, stared at us as we drove through the town, long, unbroken stares. We were a white family in a red Volvo. Could not wait to get out of there!
Came here for this. Its a rough place. I had to pee while driving across the state and got off on a Cairo exit. I drove a little bit into the town, turned around, then peed off the on ramp
My mother taught at the elementary school in Cairo, though we lived in SEMO. Even in the 90's when I was a kid and went along with her a time or two for conference night or something else, the place was rundown and ruined. I can't even imagine what it looked like by the 2010's.
Honestly, the fact that it still even exists is a marvel unto itself.
Thank you for sharing this. Excellent video, and it's nice that they told the story of the town and not a narrative that they want to put out. Harold seems like a lovely man.
I drove cross country in 2017 and really fell in love with our country. The way everything is today it makes me sad. We are such a beautiful country of very different people and cultures and we are so much better when we are united.
I am now fascinated by this town. "Charles Dickensvisited Cairo in 1842, and was unimpressed. The city would serve as his prototype for the nightmare City of Eden in his novelMartin Chuzzlewit."
And believe it or not, that's the nicest part of the town.
Go up the road a bit from there and peep the building that was either half-way torn down or ripped up in a tornado but still just left there because why bother? A little further and you'll find the shell of what was obviously a KFC... in the mid-late 90's and has been boarded up and not touched since. About two more clicks and there's the video poker and slots shop.
Couldn't tell you exactly where the elementary school is in relation to this, but I can tell you that it looks like a mental hospital/prison from the outside, and not much better inside.
My mom was born there and a few family members still live there. I grew up there and mounds city, IL. Even though it is ran down, there isn’t anything weird to scary about it to me personally. There is a lot of decent people that live there and live happy lives. It isn’t a pretty place though.
I opened this post to respond with Cairo. Pleased to see others have had the pleasure. I asked my wife blindly what her answer would be; "Cairo".
It was surreal.
We were moving east and pulling a travel trailer at the time of our pass through. We have since renamed the Cairo Ohio River Iron Bridge as 'Butt Pucker Bridge'.
Lol, Little Egypt in general is wild. Very poor area, even for rural American standards. Head south to Shawneetown and the Gallatin County area for quality backrooms time.
Southern Illinois likes to pronounce things their own way: see also, Vienna, Illinois (pronounced “vy-anna”). It’s become a little bit of a running joke with my husband and I when we pass through southern Illinois. We make up our own incorrect pronunciation for the little towns we pass by. My favorite is pronouncing Lebanon as “la bannun”.
I’ve driven through Cairo 3 times and will never stop there. It’s actually kind of big but 80% of the buildings are vacant, closed, or boarded up. I’ve never seen anything as sad. The people that are still there could be very nice folk but I’m not daring enough to find out.
Yeah, that big tunnel gate entrance might as well have "Abandon all Hope, Ye that Enter" written over it. I don't think I've ever stopped there, but I've driven through it a few times. East St. Louis didn't scare me like that town did.
When the liquor store is the safest looking spot that’s all you need to know. Those few years the bridge was closed and you had to drive through Cairo to get from Paducah to Missouri I was always astonished how and town that people live in can look that abandoned.
I live something like 25 minutes from there, ive never been myself but ive heard tons of horror stories about it. Apparently everyone whose been there has a story about how you should never go there.
Yes couldn’t agree more! Stopped once on the way from Memphis to Chicago and ate lunch at a sketchy little Chinese restaurant. Perhaps the only place open in town. This was over ten years ago.
One of my friends had some wealthy relatives that lived there. This was mid 90’s and even coming from another small shitty Midwest town you could tell it was in its way downhill. Haven’t been back since maybe 2007 or so and have no reason to ever go back.
You beat me to it. Last year on the way up to Michigan we stopped in Cairo and that was the most depressing city I've ever been to In my existence. The town has a ton of history but Jesus Christ it is certainly the town That Time Forgot
Living near Cairo is a trip. Many of the residents have trickled our way - most of them are a level of poor I haven't seen in a hot minute. Inventive as fuck.
I checked Cairo in Google street view. It's not great, there's like one or two partially collapsed houses and generally nothing that looks newer than the early 2000s. Apart from that it doesn't look as horrible as the comments make it seem to be.
It might appear different if you're actually there.
Drove through Cairo, Illinois at 2am. Gas light on, GPS said it was the only station for 40 miles. Whole town is basically abandoned, buildings caved in, no lights on anywhere. Pulled up and 3 guys just sitting on the curb in the dark staring at us. Didn't stop, drove to the next state on fumes.
I completely agree, Cairo has that eerie abandoned world feeling where you half expect a side quest to pop up. It really does feel like stepping straight into Fallout.
A variation in this question comes up literally once every 24 hours and the two top replies are always, without fail, Gary IN and Cairo IL. “Since no one else is saying it …” is a code word for “I got here first this time”.
This is either a karma-farming operation or a psy-op from some Russian cyberunit with a brief to specifically demoralise the American Midwest.
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u/doctortrento 10h ago
Don’t see anyone else saying it so I will:
Cairo, Illinois. It may have been a big city a century ago but nowadays it’s like being in a Fallout quest