Cairo, Illinois

City: Cairo

County: Alexander

State: Illinois

Lat/Long: 37.0333, -89.1833

Cairo, Illinois is a city and the county seat of Alexander County, Illinois. Located in southwestern Illinois, Cairo attracted Euro-American settlement shortly after the War of 1812. In 1818, the Illinois Territorial Legislature chartered the city and bank of Cairo, but this first attempt at settlement failed. In 1837, the Illinois General Assembly incorporated the Cairo City and Canal Company, which successfully established a village, but by 1840 few settlers remained . Success at settlement came in 1846. In 1857, the General Assembly incorporated Cairo as a city. Cairo became fairly prosperous in the 1850s and 1860s due to its location on a peninsula at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, despite the difficulties and dangers posed by habitual flooding and receding shorelines. Later, the Illinois Central Railroad further contributed to its prosperity, all of which made Cairo an important strategic position during the Civil War. Fort Defiance, constructed near the city on the tip of the peninsula, controlled access to the Ohio and Mississippi rivers from the south.

John M. Lansden, A History of the City of Cairo Illinois (Chicago: R. R. Donnelley & Sons, 1910), 33-40, 42-43, 63-64, 71-77, 128, 134; An Act to Incorporate the Cairo City and Canal Company; "An Act to Incorporate the City of Cairo," 11 February 1857, Private Laws of Illinois (1857), 400-421; Webster's New Geographical Dictionary (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1988), 200.