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Difino
| • | Cairo is a city located in Alexander County, Illinois. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 3,632. It is the county seat of Alexander County. The city's name is pronounced differently from the English name for the Egyptian city of the same name: IPA /ˈkeɪɹoʊ/CARE-oe .
Cairo is located at the confluence of the Mississippi River and the Ohio River; it is the southernmost town in the state of Illinois. Cairo is one of the few towns in Illinois protected by a levee. The rivers converge at what is the southernmost point in Illinois at Fort Defiance Park, a Civil War fort that was commanded by General Ulysses S. Grant. Cairo was founded in 1818 and incorporated as a city in 1858. It was an important steamboat port in the nineteenth century; Cairo even had its own Customs House, which has since been converted into a museum. The town has a number of fine examples of prosperous nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century architecture -- much of it abandoned and in a bad state of decay. The population of Cairo has been in decline every decade since the 1920s—in 1920: 15,203; in 1940: 14,407; 1950: 12,123. At the Cairo High School graduation in 1990, the school principal advised the graduating class to leave town, as Cairo had nothing to offer them.
In 1969, Cairo, the only segregated town in the state of Illinois, was the site of an intense civil rights struggle. The threat of violence resulted in the National Guard being called in to restore order. White-owned businesses were boycotted in an effort of protest led by the United Front civil rights organization. Despite the eventual desegregation of the town, racial tension was only partially resolved and remains a source of contention within the town.
Cairo today faces a number of serious issues, including poverty, teenage pregnancy, education, a lack of jobs, and poor access to health services. The 2004 closing of the last major industry, a plant manufacturing foam padding for automobile seats, has intensified concerns about Cairo's future. If the population continue
Source: [wikipedia: cairo, illinois]
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