Ohio River Front in 1940

Long, J. H.
Hartford, John

1940

picture

Steamboats
Motor vessels
Levees
Sam Craig (Steamboat)

Cairo (Ill.)
Ohio River

1940-1949

Cairo, Illinois is located at the southern point of the State of Illinois, between the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. The Shawnee Indians inhabited all of this country around the mouth of the Ohio River. They were joined on the north by the Illini, on the east by the Miami, and on the south by the Cherokee and Creek Indians. All of these tribes belonged to the Great Algonquin Race. Among the first known white settlers was Sieur Charles Juchereau de St. Denis, trapper and fur dealer, a native of France, who with thirty French Canadians built a fort and tannery near the Junction of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers on what is now the site of the Halliday Hotel. This was in 1702. The fort and tannery were later destroyed by an Indian attack, the settlers massacred and their stock of furs seized. Juchereau de St. Denis escaped to Kaskaskia where he lived until 1705. It was 100 years before another settlement was made at the mouth of the Ohio River. The origin of the name CAIRO is somewhat traditional. Because of the character of the low surrounding territory which made the mouth of the Ohio River a delta resembling that of the old Nileriver in Egypt, the new settlement was called Cairo. John G. Comegys, one of the town promoters, named the city. An act to incorporate the city and bank of Cairo was granted by the territorial legislature in January 1818. Trustees named in said act proceeded at once to plat the city, and lots were sold in 1852. Cairo was not incorporated until february 1857. The county in which Cairo is situated is Alexander, established at the second session of the general assembly of the state, March4, 1819, and named for William W. Alexander who lived at America. He was a practicing physician, a politician and public man. He was a member of the legislature in 1882 and 1840 and Speaker of the House in 1822 and 1824. The area of Alexander county is 220 square miles. Cairo yesterday was \"a town set down in a low, flat plain and surrounded by high levees from which one descended to the town's level by long flights of wooden steps at the intersection of the unimproved and often very muddy streets;\" poor houses and still poorer sidewlks; four churches; a public school; a great military camp; Cairo, the central point of all the movements of the Union armies on the western rivers. Cairo today is a town of paved streets, beautiful shade trees, modern schools, churches, hotels, hospital and comfortable homes. Cairo is \"The Gateway to the South.\" Cairo's rivers today are spanned by three mighty bridges, her levees improved; her harbor the home of the great Barrett Fleet and the terminals of the Federal Barge Line and the Mississippi Barge Line, a stopping place for all visiting steamboats. Cairo's rivers yesterday were geographically of tremendous importance. History records that \"To break the central hold of the Confederacy on Kentucky, Gen. Grant saw that the rivers afforded him the best available means.\"

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Herman T. Pott National Inland Waterways Library