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The story of Cairo, Illinois, is one of constant struggle, beginning with repeated attempts to establish the town. Those efforts eventually paid off: Cairo grew from just a handful of settlers into a flourishing port city and a crossroads of Midwestern commerce.
But the town’s success was overshadowed by a combination of hardships—structural vulnerabilities and devastating floods, decades of racial tension and discrimination, and a steady decline in population driven by ruin and racism. While Cairo recovered from the flooding, the lasting wounds of violence and inequality left residents divided. The rise of interstate highways and modern infrastructure only deepened the isolation, bypassing Cairo and cutting it off from the economic lifelines it once depended on.
Today, collapsing houses mark a community struggling to survive. Yet these same struggles have become the foundation of Cairo’s identity, shaping the resilience and the voice of a town too often forgotten.
