Day 30 -- Cape Girardeau, Missouri to Paducah, Kentucky -- 125 Miles

Today we did a tremendous amount of not too much. Cape Girardeau, Missouri, on a Sunday is pretty much like everywhere you visit in the south, it's just quiet on church day. Still, I had two things I wanted to do before we rolled on toward Kentucky: I wanted to visit the Cape River Heritage Museum on Independence Street; and I wanted to visit the Esicar's Meat Market, now called the Butcher Block, where my dad had ordered his bacon sixty some odd years ago, and had it sent out to our house in Southern California.

Well, true to Sunday form, neither place was open for business. Still, we were able to grab a few photos and walk a bit before heading back to Route 55, the highway that we planned to take south out of town. Actually, I was hoping to accidentally stumble over the bridge to East Cape Girardeau, which appears to be across the Mississippi River from West Cape Girardeau. This would have allowed us to take the shortest possible route toward Cairo, Illinois, our lunchtime destination. As it was, we missed that opportunity and ended up traveling all the way south to the intersection of Missouri Route 60 and Interstate Route 55 before we could turn northeast toward Cairo. That added about fifty extra miles to our total for the day, but then we're doing this for the scenery, not the fewest miles traveled.

Our lunchtime destination of Cairo, Illinois, is a town that I've wanted to see ever since I listened to Rex Ingram as runaway slave, Jim, tell Mickey Rooney's Huckleberry Finn, that he just had to get to Cairo, Illinois and be free. And Huck tells the reader, as he and Jim sit atop that old raft just floating down the mighty Mississippi, that, "We judged that three nights more would fetch us to Cairo, at the bottom of Illinois, where the Ohio River comes in, and that was what we was after. We would sell the raft and get on a steamboat and go way up the Ohio amongst the free States, and then be out of trouble."

And who, I wonder, hasn't read that classic bit of Samuel Clemens and failed to feel every emotion of those two fantastic characters. And who hasn't wondered just what Cairo, Illinois looked like. Well, today we got to find out. Sadly, Cairo's heyday came in the mid 1920s when it sported a population of 15,000 people, and could boast of a railroad link to the north, river traffic as much as you wanted, and a business economy second to few cities of its size. But somewhere along the line, some say because of unbridled racial tensions, the bloom has faded on Cairo's rose, and now the town looks more like a recent murder victim, lying in the street, who's just waiting for the local mortician to arrive so the funeral arrangements can be made. But hey, as any successful journalist will be happy to tell you, it's all copy.

Once we arrived in Cairo, the first thing we did was locate that once strategic piece of geography that rests like a arrowhead-shaped bookmark between the southwestern-trending Ohio, and the southward-rushing Mississippi (photo left). Above the Ohio and east of the Mississippi is Illinois. Below the Ohio and east of the Mississippi is Kentucky. And on the far side of the Mississippi is Missouri. The tiny spit of land where the two giant rivers collide is no bigger than a couple of wedge-shaped football fields, but it has been the location of some momentus events.

From the web I learned that "Cairo's history goes back to 1660, when Father Louis Hennepin, a French missionary priest, visited there and explored the land. He didn’t settle, but he did leave a record of his stay."

"In 1702, the Sun King Louis XIV sponsored a group of French explorers led by Charles Juchereau de St. Denis who did settle. They made a very successful living killing various types of animals and sending thousands of skins back to France. Their success was short-lived, however. Local Cherokee and other tribes, who relied on those animals for survival, attacked the settlement, confiscated the skins and killed most of the men."

"After that, the land sat empty for a hundred years, until Lewis and Clark arrived in 1803. In their party was a man from Baltimore named John G. Comegys, who saw such great promise in this land at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers that he purchased 1,800 acres there and got authorization from the territorial legislature to incorporate a town. Ol' Johnny Boy, as he was called, had a thing for Egypt--a lot of people did at that time. Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign had inspired a big Egyptomania movement. Comegys saw a resemblance between the Mississippi River Valley and Nile Delta, so he named his piece of land Cairo, which he pronounced Cay-ro. He fully expected his Cay-ro to become the Ki-ro of the Midwest."

"It didn’t happen. When Comegys died in 1820, he still owed a lot of money for his Cairo land. His family defaulted on the payments, and the federal government took over, sold the lots, and put the money in the Bank of Cairo. In the meantime, poor Cairo was still waiting for a permanent settlement to take hold. It finally did in 1837 with the advent of the steamboat trade. Unfortunately, though often more than 10 boats a day landed at Cairo it wasn't enough to ensure the success of the tiny city."

"In 1846, 10,000 acres of the area were purchased by the trustees of the Cairo City Property Trust, a group of investors who were interested in making the town the terminus of the projected Illinois Central Railroad which arrived in 1855. A city charter was obtained in 1857, and Cairo flourished as trade with Chicago spurred development. By 1860, the population exceeded 2,000."

"Cairo was headquarters for General Ulysses S. Grant and Admiral Andrew Hull Foote during the western campaigns of the American Civil War. Grant's presence forced much of the city's trade to be diverted to Chicago. Cairo failed to regain much of the trade lost during the war, and agriculture and lumber and sawmills subsequently came to dominate the economy. During the American Civil War, Cairo was a strategically important supply base and training center for the Union army."

"After the Civil War, the city became a hub for railroad shipping in the region, which added to its economy. By 1900 several railroad lines branched from Cairo. In addition to shipping and railroads, a major industry in Cairo was the operation of ferries. Into the late 19th century, nearly 250,000 railroad cars could be ferried across the river in as little as six months. Vehicles were also ferried, as there were no automobile bridges in the area in the early 20th century. The ferry industry created numerous jobs in Cairo to handle large amounts of cargo and numerous passengers through the city."

"Wealthy merchants and shippers built numerous fine mansions in the 19th and early 20th century, including the Italianate Magnolia Manor (photo right), completed in 1872, and many more. But Cairo has always been located in a very vulnerable place in times of flooding. Floods in 1927 and 1937 heavily damaged the town. Following the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the levee system around Cairo was strengthened. As part of this project, the Corps of Engineers established the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway."

"The Ohio River flood of 1937 brought a record water level to Cairo that crested at 59.5 feet. To protect Cairo, Corps of Engineers closed the flood gate and blew a breach in the Bird's Point levee for the first time to relieve pressure on the Cairo flood wall. Following the flood, the concrete flood wall was raised to its current height. It is designed to protect the town from flood waters up to 64 feet."

"With the decline in river trade, as has been the case in many other cities on the Mississippi, Cairo has experienced a marked decline in its economy and population. Its highest population was 15,203 in 1920; in 2010 it had 2,831 residents (it's even less now). The community and region are working to stop abandonment of the city, restore its architectural landmarks, and develop heritage tourism focusing on its history and relationship to the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, to bring new opportunities to the community."

Before leaving Cairo I couldn't resist taking a few photos to document the sad, sad look of the place, though we did see some very nice houses on the west side of town. But as far as we could see the patient better get some sort of transfusion pretty soon. There is already evidence of buildings being torn down for the building materials that they generate. Concetta wanted to know why they would bother. But I told her when a single "used brick" goes for about a dollar, you can make out pretty well harvesting them. It looked to me as though Cairo might become a vacant lot someday soon.

After leaving Cairo, we crossed the Ohio River on Route 60 and headed northeast toward Paducah, Kentucky, on what turned out to be a very rural, and splendidly scenic road. We didn't have any specific reason for picking Paducah, but it boasted a couple of nice campgrounds and we figured we would reach one of them about the right time of day -- cocktail hour. So we got into camp fairly early, got set up, and had our cocktails under the awning, and now we're thinking about thinking about dinner. Tomorrow, we've got a museum just down the road, they tell us. Supposedly, it's a "River" museum much like the one we didn't get to see in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, this morning.

So, our intention tomorrow is to follow Kentucky Route 60 as it flirts with the state's northern border on the Ohio River. Eventually, I want to do some genealogical work in Kentucky, if possible, as my Mother's Father's ancestors came from Louisville around the time of the end of the Revolution. So, stay tuned as we enjoy Kentucky, seek out a few distilleries, and generally enjoy the achingly beautiful countryside. We wish you Happy Traveling!