Abandoned Towns
A row of empty two- and three-story brick storefronts with faded paint on a quiet, wide downtown street in Cairo

River and lake town

Cairo

Cairo grew rich on the rivers and the railroad, peaked at 15,203 people in 1920 and has lost people in every census since 1950. About 1,700 live there now. Its downtown is largely empty, while the mansions, the old custom house and the river point still draw visitors.

37°00′47″N 89°10′49″W · ≈315 ft

Photo: hickory hardscrabble, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

Living town

Cairo is a living city of 1,733 people (2020 census) and the Alexander County seat. Its homes, businesses and empty buildings are private. Many downtown blocks stand vacant, and in 2011 the Illinois Times found facades there crumbling onto the sidewalks: look from the street and don't go in.

Overview

A river city that emptied out

Commercial Avenue looking north, with a streetcar and parked cars, on a 1929 postcard
Commercial Avenue looking north, with a streetcar and parked cars, on a 1929 postcard · Photo: Curt Teich & Co., Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

Cairo sits on the low point of land where the Ohio flows into the Mississippi, ringed by levees and flood walls. Two early attempts to build a town there failed. The Illinois Central Railroad made the third work: it arrived in 1855, the city was chartered in 1857, and by 1860 more than 2,000 people lived there. In the Civil War Cairo was a Union base. The Navy's river squadron was stationed there, and Ulysses S. Grant held the city and built Fort Defiance at the point.

River and rail traffic made Cairo a city of mansions and busy streets. It reached 15,203 people in 1920. Then the traffic began to pass it by. Railroad bridges over the Ohio in 1889 and at Thebes in 1905 cut the ferry and rail business, highway bridges in 1929 and 1937 ended the ferries, and the I-57 bridge of 1978 took through travelers north of town. The hospital closed in 1986 and passenger trains stopped in 1987.

Race shaped the decline too. Two men were lynched in Cairo in 1909. In July 1967 Robert Hunt died in the police station, and rioting followed. The Cairo United Front organized in 1969, and its boycott of white-owned businesses lasted about ten years. Cairo has lost people in every census since 1950. In 2017 the federal government closed two housing projects that held about 400 people, and the 2020 count was 1,733.

That is why Cairo turns up on ghost-town lists. It is not empty: people live here, the county is governed from here, and the drive video below, posted in November 2025, passes an open dollar store on the main road. But whole blocks of its downtown stand vacant, and many buildings there have already been torn down.

Then and now

Downtown Cairo from the air, 1956 and 2019

Cairo reached 15,203 people in 1920. On September 24, 1956, a U.S. Department of Agriculture survey plane photographed the south end of the city: brick buildings packed along Commercial and Washington avenues near the Ohio levee, the rows of the McBride housing project, and rail yards inside the levee to the south.

The city has lost people in every census since 1950, and many downtown buildings have been torn down; the 2020 census counted 1,733. The federal government closed McBride and the Elmwood project in 2017, and their demolition began in May 2019. The second photograph, from the federal farm survey of September 12, 2019, shows the same street grid with empty lots between the buildings that remain, bare ground where most of McBride's rows stood, and trees over the old rail yards. The strip of river at upper right, with its barges, comes from the survey of June 29, 2022, because the 2019 Illinois photographs stop in the river.

Drag the line across the photo, or use the arrow keys.
2019 aerial photograph: the same streets with many empty lots, bare ground where most of the housing rows stood, and trees over the rail yardsCommercial AvenueWashington AvenueDowntown, many lots emptyBare ground, rows torn downTrees over the old yards2019
1956 aerial photograph: Cairo's street grid packed with buildings along Commercial and Washington avenues, rows of housing-project buildings and rail yards inside the leveeCommercial AvenueWashington AvenueDowntown blocksMcBride housing projectRail yards1956
1956 aerial photograph: Cairo's street grid packed with buildings along Commercial and Washington avenues, rows of housing-project buildings and rail yards inside the leveeCommercial AvenueWashington AvenueDowntown blocksMcBride housing projectRail yards1956
1956. Cairo's street grid packed with buildings along Commercial and Washington avenues, rows of housing-project buildings and rail yards inside the levee.
2019 aerial photograph: the same streets with many empty lots, bare ground where most of the housing rows stood, and trees over the rail yardsCommercial AvenueWashington AvenueDowntown, many lots emptyBare ground, rows torn downTrees over the old yards2019
2019. The same streets with many empty lots, bare ground where most of the housing rows stood, and trees over the rail yards.

1956: U.S. Department of Agriculture; scan by the Illinois State Geological Survey (ILHAP), source, Public domain. 2019: U.S. Department of Agriculture NAIP, via USGS The National Map; the strip of river at upper right is from the survey of June 29, 2022, source, Public domain. Both photographs cover the same 1.6 by 1.2 km and were lined up by matching 226 small windows of the two photographs across the street grid, to within about 1 to 2 m, with street corners checked by eye. The river strip at upper right, with the barges, is from the June 29, 2022 survey and meets the 2019 photograph at a faint seam in the water. Labels: Commercial and Washington avenues and the former McBride housing project placed and named from OpenStreetMap, the rest from what the photographs show.

Video

A drive down Cairo's main avenue

A six-minute drive through Cairo on an overcast day, with the last leaves on the trees and holiday decorations on the light poles, filmed from the car with no narration. It passes brick churches, big houses, an open dollar store and empty lots, then heads out through a concrete underpass in the levee and north along the highway. The title is the channel's. The video shows only public streets.

Play “Creepy Town Road Tour of Cairo, Illinois in 4K - Downtown Cairo IL” from YouTube
“Creepy Town Road Tour of Cairo, Illinois in 4K - Downtown Cairo IL”, by ROAD TOUR on YouTube. The player loads from YouTube when you press play.

Timeline

Railroad, river and decline

A stern-wheeler passing under the Illinois Central bridge over the Ohio at Cairo, with log rafts at the bank, 1909
A stern-wheeler passing under the Illinois Central bridge over the Ohio at Cairo, with log rafts at the bank, 1909 · Photo: Miscellaneous Items in High Demand, PPOC, Library of Congress, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
  1. A first town charter is issued in 1818, but no settlement follows. A second attempt in 1836 and 1837 collapses in 1840.
  2. The Illinois Central Railroad reaches Cairo in 1855. A new charter makes it a city in 1857.
  3. More than 2,000 people.
  4. Cairo becomes the Navy's Mississippi River Squadron station in September 1861. Ulysses S. Grant occupies the city in January 1862 and builds Fort Defiance at the point.
  5. The Custom House goes up on Washington Avenue, and Charles Galigher builds Magnolia Manor.
  6. The Illinois Central's Ohio River bridge opens in 1889, and a second bridge at Thebes in 1905. Ferry and rail traffic through Cairo starts to fall.
  7. Two men, William James and Henry Salzner, are lynched on November 11.
  8. The 80-ton "Big Subway Gate" is built in the flood wall.
  9. The census peak: 15,203 people.
  10. Highway bridges over the Mississippi and Ohio end the ferry business. In the 1937 flood the Ohio crests at 59.5 feet; the Corps of Engineers blows a breach in the Birds Point levee, and the flood wall is raised afterward.
  11. Robert Hunt's death in the police station in July 1967 sets off rioting. The Cairo United Front forms in 1969, and a boycott of white-owned businesses lasts about a decade.
  12. The I-57 bridge bypasses the city in 1978. The hospital closes in December 1986, and Amtrak stops calling in October 1987.
  13. The whole city is evacuated as the rivers rise, and the Corps breaches levees in Missouri.
  14. The federal government closes the Elmwood and McBride housing projects, home to about 400 people. Demolition starts in May 2019.
  15. The census counts 1,733 people, the eighth straight decline.
  16. A grocery store opens in 2023, the first since 2015, and closes in 2025.

What's empty

Commercial Avenue

Gutted storefronts on a downtown block, with rubble from a demolition at right, May 2011
Gutted storefronts on a downtown block, with rubble from a demolition at right, May 2011 · Photo: MuZemike, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
A brick-paved downtown block with boarded storefronts, May 2012
A brick-paved downtown block with boarded storefronts, May 2012 · Photo: Paul Sableman, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

Cairo's downtown ran along Commercial Avenue, a street of two- and three-story brick blocks a few steps from the Ohio levee. In June 2011 the Illinois Times found it mostly abandoned, with brick facades crumbling onto the sidewalks, rotting plywood in the rubble and only a handful of buildings in use, among them a tavern and an appliance store, and the city planning to demolish unused buildings. Photos from 2011 to 2017 show the blocks thinning: brick-paved streets with lamp posts, empty storefronts with faded painted ads, and new gaps where buildings came down. The Gem Theater's lettered marquee still hung over boarded doors in 2019.

These buildings are private and many are unsafe. Walk the sidewalks and look; don't go in.

What's still standing

Mansions, custom house and the point

Magnolia Manor, the Galigher mansion of 1869, at Washington Avenue and 28th Street, July 2024
Magnolia Manor, the Galigher mansion of 1869, at Washington Avenue and 28th Street, July 2024 · Photo: w_lemay, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

Cairo's best buildings survive on Washington Avenue. Magnolia Manor, built for Charles and Adelia Galigher from 1869, has been a house museum since the 1950s. In November 2025 KFVS found the president of the Cairo Historical Board and a neighbor who volunteers on the grounds caring for its original woodwork and antiques, and raising money to fix the roof before its annual holiday celebration. The Old Custom House of 1869 to 1872, designed by Alfred B. Mullett, is a museum with Civil War exhibits, including a desk used by Grant. We found no posted hours: the National Park Service page, last updated in 2021, says to call the museum for them. The A. B. Safford Memorial Library, built in 1883, was dedicated in 1884. Wikipedia also lists Riverlore, a Second Empire mansion of 1865; we found no current source on its condition.

South of town, Fort Defiance State Park occupies Cairo Point, the southern tip of Illinois. The DNR describes picnicking and a concrete observation building over the confluence, and lists the point at 279 feet, the lowest in the state. None of our sources describes any remains of Grant's fort.

The historic maps below show the city filling its levee ring. The 1931 sheet shows the grid packed between the rivers, with rail lines, a ferry and a railroad bridge over the Ohio. The 1967 sheet still marks six schools, a courthouse, a park and a bandstand; on the 1993 sheet the school names are gone from the same blocks.

  • Commercial Avenue's empty downtown blocks
  • Magnolia Manor (1869), house museum
  • Old Custom House (1872), museum
  • A. B. Safford Memorial Library (1883)
  • Flood walls and the 1914 subway gate
  • Fort Defiance State Park at the confluence
USGS topographic map of northern Cairo inside its levees
USGS The National Map, topo. The street grid of northern Cairo inside the levee ring.
Aerial view of Cairo's streets, houses and vacant lots
Aerial imagery, same area. Houses, trees and open lots in the city's grid.

Historic maps

Cairo on USGS maps, 1931–1993

Crops from the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection, centered on the townsite. Each sheet shows what surveyors mapped that year; compare them with today's topo and aerial on this page.

USGS topographic map around Cairo, 1931
Cairo sheet, 1931, 1:62,500 · U.S. Geological Survey, public domain · catalog record

Map & directions

Getting there

Cape Girardeau, Missouri, is the nearest larger city: cross the Mississippi on the Bill Emerson bridge and follow IL 3 south into Cairo. From St. Louis, take I-55 south to the same bridge. Both routes end on the north side of town; downtown and the point are a mile or two farther south.

USGS topographic map of Cairo between the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, with the routes drawn on it

Base map: USGS The National Map (public domain). Routes: OSRM on © OpenStreetMap contributors data (ODbL), computed October 2026. Times assume dry roads.

From downtown Cape Girardeau, Missouri33.0 miabout 52 min
  1. From downtown Cape Girardeau, take Broadway, North Spanish Street, Morgan Oak Street and South Fountain Street through the roundabout.1.0 mi
  2. Turn left on Shawnee Parkway (MO 74) and cross the Mississippi on the Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge (IL 146).4.1 mi
  3. Turn right on IL 3.17.5 mi
  4. Turn right to stay on IL 3, which becomes US 51 into Cairo, to 31st Street.10.3 mi
Google Maps directionsApple MapsOpenStreetMap

Road and safety notes

  • Both routes follow highways into town; a drive video posted in November 2025 shows paved streets and highway. US 51 runs through town; Commercial Avenue, the old downtown street, is near the Ohio levee.
  • In the 2011 flood the whole city was evacuated. Check river news before a trip in high water.

Photos

Cairo in photos

Visitor reports

Been to Cairo?

Been there lately? Tell the next visitor what you found: whether you could get in, the state of the road and what's still standing. Photos are welcome. We read every report before it appears here.

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Nearby

Other sites near Cairo

Straight-line distance from the townsite to other mapped sites in our Illinois index.

Sources

Sources and credits

  1. Wikipedia, "Cairo, Illinois", retrieved October 2026: the charters of 1818, 1836 and 1857, the railroad in 1855, the Civil War, the census series (15,203 in 1920; 1,733 in 2020), the bridges of 1889, 1905, 1929, 1937 and 1978, the 1914 gate, the 1937 and 2011 floods, the 1909 lynching, the events of 1967 to 1970 and the boycott, the hospital and Amtrak, the housing closures, the grocery store, the 2024 population figure, the historic buildings (Magnolia Manor, Riverlore, the library built in 1883 and dedicated in 1884), elevation and coordinates.
  2. ghosttowns.com, Cairo: listed as a semi-ghost town; fact sheet (2WD, anytime, climate, abandoned downtown).
  3. Illinois Times, "Rebirth of a rivertown," June 16, 2011: Commercial Street mostly abandoned, crumbling facades and rotting plywood, a handful of buildings in use including a tavern and an appliance store, demolition plans.
  4. KFVS, "We the People: Magnolia Manor is a bright spot in Cairo, Ill.," published November 24, 2025: the Galighers and 1869, a museum since the 1950s, the Cairo Historical Board, a volunteer, the roof fund and the annual holiday celebration.
  5. National Park Service, Cairo Custom House Museum (page updated May 18, 2021): built 1869 to 1872, its exhibits, call (618) 734-9632 for hours.
  6. Illinois DNR, Fort Defiance State Park, read October 2026: Cairo Point, 279 feet, picnicking and the observation building over the confluence.
  7. ROAD TOUR, "Creepy Town Road Tour of Cairo, Illinois in 4K - Downtown Cairo IL", YouTube, posted November 23, 2025: the video on this page; the drive through town, the open dollar store and paved streets.
  8. Elevation: Wikipedia and the Illinois DNR. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026.

Photo and map credits