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An Illinois Town’s Hope Rests On Money And The Mighty Mississippi

The Mississippi River system is both an artery and a vein. It pumps ag products out of the heartland and into the world while bringing back fertilizer and steel to keep that economic engine purring.

But there’s too much water. Flooding is forcing boats and barges to wait for the river to drop.

In the Quad Cities, bordering Illinois and Iowa, the Mississippi just droppedbelow flood stage for the first time in 96 consecutive days, crushing the prior 42-day record.

The stalled river traffic could be an opportunity, though, for a town that’s been slowly dying for years: Cairo, Illinois. It has no grocery store or gas station, but the town is trying to construct its way out of poverty while giving those barge companies a place to unload stranded cargo.

Mark Glaab, who is the facilities manager at American Commercial Barge Line's Cairo office, said they've had good luck in recent years with moving more material upstream. But when the water is high, those barges have to wait until levels drop.
Credit Madelyn Beck / Harvest Public Media, Illinois Newsroom
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Harvest Public Media, Illinois Newsroom
Mark Glaab, who is the facilities manager at American Commercial Barge Line's Cairo office, said they've had good luck in recent years with moving more material upstream. But when the water is high, those barges have to wait until levels drop.

On June 12, Mark Glaab looked through papers on his desk to find that there were 642 barges in the Ohio River next to his American Commercial Barge Line office near Cairo.

“And that’s just me, that’s not the other fleets in the area. That’s just ACBL,” said Glaab, who manages the facility.

The barges were visible outside his window, but the flotilla carrying thousands of tons of product was still dwarfed by the high, muddy water. Glaab said plants in Chicago threatened to shut down because they were running out of the products floating behind him.

“I get three or four calls a day. People wanting to be able to unload their barges here into trucks or into trains because we can’t go onto the river until the water goes down,” he said.

The products can’t unload in Cairo, though, because there isn’t a port.

Cairo has tried to get a port before. The location makes sense. It’s at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi River, which both narrow as they go north. It’s where many barges split apart to make it through locks upstream. And Cairo has rail lines and nearby interstates.

Driving into Cairo from the north, you pass a funeral home and a bridge underneath a rail line. There are structures behind this bridge that shut it off in case of massive flooding from the nearby Ohio and Mississippi rivers.
Credit Madelyn Beck / Harvest Public Media, Illinois Newsroom
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Harvest Public Media, Illinois Newsroom
Driving into Cairo from the north, you pass a funeral home and a bridge underneath a rail line. There are structures behind this bridge that shut it off in case of massive flooding from the nearby Ohio and Mississippi rivers.

However, poor river conditions and funding challenges have kept the port from becoming a reality.

“(The port) has been on the radar of, you know, different groups for many years. But this is the closest we've ever been actually building one,” said Larry Klein, a semi-retired utility company worker and member of the local port authority board.

Klein is optimistic about the port, even as he expressed dismay over how far the town has fallen.

“I’ve seen it in its heyday and I see it today. And well, it hurts,” he said. “You know, you can understand never having nothing...But to have everything and lost it all, something was wrong.”

Cairo’s past and future

Cairo has nearly died and come back several times, starting in the 1800’s.

Its most recent boomtime was in the 1950's and early 60’s. Cairo had more than 15,000 people and was a hub for rural-southern Illinois.

The Riverlore mansion reflects the wealth that once flowed through Cairo. Two public housing apartment complexes were condemned in 2017, leaving more than 400 residents without a home.
Credit Madelyn Beck / Harvest Public Media, Illinois Newsroom
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Harvest Public Media, Illinois Newsroom
The Riverlore mansion reflects the wealth that once flowed through Cairo. Two public housing apartment complexes were condemned in 2017, leaving more than 400 residents without a home.

While many were doing well around then, the black community was not. They had no representation and few opportunities, so they started fighting to be seen as equals. In 1967, riots broke out across the country, including in Cairo. Stores were boycotted. Businesses burned.

On top of it all, a new interstate bypassed the town completely.

Now, people like Kenneth Taake hope that Cairo rebounds because it would be a boon to the entire region. Taake is a farmer in Ullin, Illinois, and he said he used to drive 20 miles to Cairo to get clothes and supplies as a kid. Now he’ll drive 30 or even 40 miles to get big items. Beyond supplies, though, Taake wants to bring back younger people.

“Most of our youth are not staying in the area. I think that’s true of most rural areas, but there’s not really anything to draw them back,” he said, adding that his own daughter moved to the St. Louis area. “So, you know, anything that would help our economy would be good.”

Brittany Harrell works the front desk at the only hotel listed near Cairo – a Quality Inn that caters to those getting off Interstate 57. She said she stayed in Cairo to care for her father, and is now raising three kids, ages 9, 6 and 5 months. She said she wants them to have more options.

Brittany Harrell works the front desk at Quality Inn Cairo I-57, the only hotel listed online near Cairo. She said Cairo has changed for the worse over the last 30 years. Many residents now depend on a nearby dollar store or rides from friends to make it to pharmacies in neighboring communities.
Credit Madelyn Beck / Harvest Public Media, Illinois Newsroom
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Harvest Public Media, Illinois Newsroom
Brittany Harrell works the front desk at Quality Inn Cairo I-57, the only hotel listed online near Cairo. She said Cairo has changed for the worse over the last 30 years. Many residents now depend on a nearby dollar store or rides from friends to make it to pharmacies in neighboring communities.

“We really need things to come back so people can live again here. And not just stay, you know?” she said. “Like there's nothing for my kids to do here. There's no kind of sports for them to do...it's just nothing,” she said.

Shawnee Community College wants to give kids like Harrell’s opportunities as they grow up. The college serves rural communities around the southern part of the state, often giving students credits that can transfer to bigger universities or train them for trades.

The college opened a new annex in Cairo in December, and aims to help more kids in high school there take dual-credit courses. If a port were to come in, the college said it’d be poised to get those local students jobs.

Shawnee Community College opened a new annex in Cairo in December to help students take classes that can transfer to large college and universities. The community college also plans to offer more dual-credit courses to K-12 students.
Credit Madelyn Beck / Harvest Public Media, Illinois Newsroom
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Harvest Public Media, Illinois Newsroom
Shawnee Community College opened a new annex in Cairo in December to help students take classes that can transfer to large college and universities. The community college also plans to offer more dual-credit courses to K-12 students.

"I’ve worked in other communities that have had ports,” said Kathleen Curphy, the college’s vice president of academic affairs. “So I’ve worked on logistics training, we’ve developed captains training, we’ve developed seaman’s training, all the different many types of training that you will find as that port develops in the Cairo area.”

Big ifs

All of the optimism around a port in Cairo is built on a big, expensive “if.” That is, if the state will help pay for the $75 million port, and if industry will help pay for what the Legislature doesn’t fund.

State Rep. Dale Fowler said in April that securing something like a thousand-job manufacturing plant isn’t realistic for that depressed area.

“But what is realistic is to capitalize on some of the resources such as the confluence here of the Mississippi and Ohio here in Cairo,” he said. “An opportunity that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the entire nation.”

Fowler highlighted the hundreds of residents who recently lost their homes in Cairo when two public housing buildings were condemned. However, he said he felt a growing momentum to support Cairo in the wake of these challenges.

Larry Klein, who is one the local port authority board and works with the utility, stands next to the Mississippi River on land where they're hoping to build a port. The city owns this land, but the utility manages it.
Credit Madelyn Beck / Harvest Public Media, Illinois Newsroom
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Harvest Public Media, Illinois Newsroom
Larry Klein, who is one the local port authority board and works with the utility, stands next to the Mississippi River on land where they're hoping to build a port. The city owns this land, but the utility manages it.

Two years ago, the Rauner Family Foundation gave $100,000 to help get the port planning off the ground. Then the Legislature gave $1 million to the project last year. This year, a capitol funding bill has $150 million set aside for port funding in Illinois.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker is expected to sign that capital funding bill in the next few weeks, which will explain how towns can apply for those funds. Cairo asked for half of the pot at $75 million – but will be competing against 18 other port districts to get it.

If Cairo doesn’t get the $75 million, Klein said, they’ll use whatever money they do get to start groundwork for the port project to entice private investors.

“Hopefully build some roads, improve electrical, natural gas, sewers, water. Just improve the infrastructure and get it that much closer to being it done,” he said.

Former Cairo Mayor Tyrone Coleman says a port could revitalize this town, which once was home to 15,000 people.
Credit Madelyn Beck / Harvest Public Media, Illinois Newsroom
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Harvest Public Media, Illinois Newsroom
Former Cairo Mayor Tyrone Coleman says a port could revitalize this town, which once was home to 15,000 people.

Former Cairo Mayor Tyrone Coleman has high hopes for this port, too. He told a group of journalists in April that there’s no limit to what this port could bring. Maybe a few trucking jobs here, then a gas station there. Maybe a few more people moving into town.

“And that’s the excitement of it all is the unknown factor,” he said. “I don’t want to say (a port would) ‘bring the past back’, but at least bring it to a point where there is opportunity. And that’s what’s been lacking in this most southern point of Illinois in the past couple of years.”

This story was made possible, in part, by a fellowship with the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources.

Follow Madelyn on Twitter @MadelynBeck8

The Shawnee Forest towboat steers down the Ohio River near American Commercial Barge Line's office outside Cairo, Illinois. As of June 12, there were more than 600 barges waiting for water levels to drop so they could go upstream.
Credit Madelyn Beck / Harvest Public Media, Illinois Newsroom
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Harvest Public Media, Illinois Newsroom
The Shawnee Forest towboat steers down the Ohio River near American Commercial Barge Line's office outside Cairo, Illinois. As of June 12, there were more than 600 barges waiting for water levels to drop so they could go upstream.

Copyright 2020 Harvest Public Media. To see more, visit .

Madelyn Beck is a reporter based in Galesburg, Illinois. She covers agriculture, food and rural issues for Harvest Public Media and the Illinois Newsroom.
Madelyn Beck
Madelyn Beck is a regional Illinois reporter, based in Galesburg. On top of her work for Harvest Public Media, she also contributes to WVIK, Tri-States Public Radio and the Illinois Newsroom collaborative. Beck is from a small cow ranch in Manhattan, Montana. Her previous work was mostly based in the western U.S., but she has covered agriculture, environment and health issues from Alaska to Washington, D.C. Before joining Harvest and the Illinois Newsroom, she was as an energy reporter based in Wyoming for the public radio collaborative Inside Energy. Other publications include the Idaho Mountain Express, E&E News/EnergyWire, KRBD Rainbird Radio, the Montana Broadcasters Association, Montana Public Radio and the Tioga Tribune.
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