Creepy photos show abandoned town of Cairo, Illinois years after economic boom and bust

[KamaAina]

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Abandoned-town-Cairo-Illinois-photos-9190935.php

Photos of a desolate town in southern Illinois show a disintegrating city square and rotting brick buildings with broken windows and rusted metal that housed a bustling citizenry decades ago.

Cairo, Illinois, seven square miles tucked away between the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, boomed in the 1920's as the steamboat industry took off and it was home to an vital train station, according to Atlas Obscura.

At it's peak, the city was home to about 15,000. Fast forward nearly a century, and the town of 2,000 is almost completely abandoned, save a public library and a few "state-owned Victorian manors," Atlas Obscura reported.

Now, nature is beginning to swallow parts of the town, with ivy running across many of the abandoned buildings and some of the now-empty homes being grown over with vegetation.

DUville, anyone? It is possible to reach Cairo by bus from Carbondale, which has several trains a day to Chicago and is near an airport with a few flights a day to St. Louis. The first order of business, though, would be to open a grocery. Cairo is a classic food desert, with only a couple of gas station mini-marts -- and the situation is little better in any nearby town!

[busterbrown]

1. Looks exactly what it should look like..

According to Republicans.. In fact its perfect!

State Govts .. controlled by Republicans who have no interest in reinvesting in decaying cities caused by a myriad of reasons:, Shipping jobs overseas, underfunding inner school districts, Tax Breaks to the top which resulted in the loss of any type of meaningful funds for education..The list can go on and on.

And do they end up blaming? The Mayor of the city which to which the Republicans destroyed ... Coleman Young certainly comes to mind..

Disenfranchising Cities...
The key to Disenfranchising inner city voters..
Key to the Republican electoral victories..

Then Blame Mayor Coleman...Perfect!

[liberal N proud]

2. Cut funding, cut taxes, cut wages and this what you get.

[Person 2713]

3. The closet grocery store is in Kentucky

About one hour from Carbondale where the university is

[KamaAina]

12. And the bus does not cross into KY

although it does go to the OxyMoron's home town of Cape Girardeau, MO (just "Cape" locally).

[Kilgore]

4. Interesting background article

The comments section is worth reading also

http://abandonedonline.net/2012/02/13/a-trip-to-cairo-illinois/

[JanMichael]

5. Been there before about 8 years ago. It was a gate to an underworld in a Gaiman book.

American Gods...It was a practical ghost town then and I imagine more so now.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

20. Imagine greater...

[Hekate]

24. That's exactly what I first thought of. Mr Jacquel & Mr Ibis ran the funeral parlor; the housecat...

...was Bast.

American Gods is one of the most fantastic books I have ever read.

[FSogol]

28. +1, agreed. n/t

[sakabatou]

6. I can see it being used as a set for a zombie flic/show

[ileus]

7. Mid 90's was the last time I was there.

It doesn't look that much different than 20 years ago..


no people is a problem anywhere...

[d_r]

8. it would be a good place

to film something like the walking dead

[Lee-Lee]

9. Back when I was running between MO and NC a lot I drove trough there many times

I usually cut across the river there at Ft Defiance but sometimes I went through Cairo to 57 for a change of pace. Definitely a depressing place.

Looking at the real estate listings there a livable home that needs a little work is $11,000 and a great looking 5br is $70,000.

[sarcasmo]

23. Someone needs to turn that into an off grid town.

[dembotoz]

27. urban homesteading?

flooding does bother me climate change and all.

i have friends looking to move to foreign countries for a lower cost of living when they retire. Perhaps the answer is much closer.

not the crime of detroit.....at least don't think so

few bucks gets lots of house

taxes???? what are the taxes on an assessed value of 11k

[Eleanors38]

31. I kid you not. If folks are looking for a "new frontier," this is it. It needs Farms.

[Lee-Lee]

32. It's heavy farming country so that would fit well

It would be an interesting experiment.

[roamer65]

10. Cairo gets two celestial events, 8 years apart.

It will be in the path of totality for the August 21, 2017 solar eclipse and ditto for the April 8, 2024 solar eclipse.
Hopefully that brings some business.

[Egnever]

11. One look at a map and you can clearly see what happened.

At one time it was clearly a prime trade route stop with the river intersection. Interstates, trains, and planes put this place out of business.

Nice snapshot in time.

Thnx for posting.

[Brother Buzz]

33. Cairo is downstream from Cape Girardeau, hometown of Rush Limbaugh....

and everyone knows shirt flows downstream. 'Nuff said.

[Festivito]

13. We have a hundred Cairos here in Detroit. Ships replaced by train, plane and truck.

Mix a very profitable industry of autos with a cold war needing to move manufacturing, i.e., jobs, to multiple locations across the country and, somehow, the world. Add in busing inside the city confines, but, carefully not outside the city confines, i.e., suburbs with pretty sounding names that will resist to no longer be swallowed up by the big city name like other small enclaves that disappeared as Detroit grew larger.

Suddenly there is a city where people move out.

Detroit still has its large industry headquarters that holds it together, partially. Cairo and Detroit have river travel. No one uses river travel for much except bypassing our two cities. Occasionally, a ship stops to feed one of our reduced sized industrial plants. Cairo seems to have nothing.

We've outlived our usefulness.

[Maeve]

14. Like an episode of "Life After People"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_After_People

[Buckeye_Democrat]

15. That's what I was thinking.

I've seen pics of other abandoned places, but I haven't yet explored one. It's still on my "bucket list."

[Go Vols]

16. Army Corps of Engineers saved it back in '11

WYATT, Mo. — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers exploded a large section of a Mississippi River levee Monday in a desperate attempt to protect an Illinois town from rising floodwaters.

The corps said the break in the Birds Point levee would help tiny Cairo, Ill., by diverting up to 4 feet of water off the river. Just before Monday night's explosions, river levels at Cairo were at historic highs and creating pressure on the floodwall protecting the town.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/missouri-levee-blown-up-to-save-illinois-town/


I used to live up that way and was glad they did it.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

18. I thought I remembered the town was involved in one of the many flood fiascos.

IIRC, farmers were pissed because they flooded farm land to save the town. Buildings over crops???

[Go Vols]

19. Yep,farmers were pissed,

but the levee(Bird’s Point-New Madrid floodway) was built with that purpose in mind...opening up the floodway that is expected to offer relief to several beleaguered communities in Missouri, Illinois and Kentucky.

[Binkie The Clown]

17. I don't find them creepy at all. I find them beautiful.

Mother nature taking back what was always hers, once humans step out of the way. There's something about buildings that just don't belong. They're temporary, obviously, and fighting a losing battle against nature. Small plants reclaim the small cracks, and bit by bit, the unnatural scourge that was a city is gives way once more to natural balance and beauty.

Another few hundred years and it would become beautiful rolling hills and prairies again.

[JonLP24]

21. I agree

[Liberal_in_LA]

22. Fancy church in background

[greyl]

25. St. Patrick Catholic Church

6. St. Patrick Catholic Church (Cairo)
This church was built in 1838. It has actually been built three times, due to flooding issues. This church is constructed of stone in the Gothic revival style.

http://www.onlyinyourstate.com/illinois/churches-il/

A movie named Dig Two Graves was filmed in the same county, to be released next month:

A girl's obsession with her brother's disappearance leads her on a nightmarish journey through a small town's Gothic landscape where she is faced with a deadly proposition. How far will she go to save the people she loves?
Director: Hunter Adams
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2633076/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Cairo was also the destination of Jim and Huckleberry on their adventure.

[Warren DeMontague]

26. POST APOCALYPTIC ZOMBIE THEME PARK AND RESORT

Okay, that was my fuckin' idea, man. Don't anybody try and steal it, now,

[PatSeg]

29. Fascinating photos

Thanks for posting.

[raccoon]

30. Reminds me of EARTH ABIDES, which I read within 24 hours when I was in college.

That sort of things fascinates me.

[sylvanus]

34. Stopped through there once,

on a round about way of getting to Iowa. It was a very surreal place and sad, because some of the old buildings, you could tell, once had been beautiful. Amazing turn of the century architecture, classic old river town, killed by the switch from river traffic to highway traffic. A classic and pretty well preserved mid west ghost town. Mentioned in Neal Gaimans novel "American Gods" as was Rock City in my present neck of the woods in the 'Noog.