CAIRO  , a

city and the county-seat of Alexander county, Illinois, U.S.A., in the S. part of the state, at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, 365 m . S. of Chicago . Pop . (1890) 10,324; (1900) 12,566, of whom 5000 were negroes; (1910 census) 14,548 . Cairo is served by the Illinois Central, the Mobile & Ohio, the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis, the St Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern, and the St Louis South-Western railways, and by river steamboat lines . The city, said to be the " Eden " of Charles Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit, is built on a tongue of land between the rivers, and has suffered many times from inundations, notably in 1858 . It is now protected by great levees . A fine railway bridge (1888) spans the Ohio . The city has a large government building, a U.S. marine hospital (1884), and the A . B . Safford memorial library (1882), and is the seat of St Joseph's Loretto Academy (Roman Catholic, 1864) . In one of the squares there is a bronze statue, " The Hewer," by G .

G .

Barnard . In the N. part of the city is St Mary's park (30 acres) . At Mound City (pop. in 1910, 2837), 5 M . N. of Cairo, there is a national cemetery . Lumber and flour are Cairo's principal manufactured products, and the city is an important hardwood and cotton-wood market; the Singer Manufacturing Co. has veneer mills here, and there are large box factories . In 1905 the value of the city's factory products was $4,381,465, an increase of 40.6% since 19o0 . Cairo is a shipping-point for the surrounding agricultural country . The city owes its origin to a series of commercial experiments . In 1818 a charter was secured from the legislature of the territory of Illinois incorporating the city and bank of Cairo . The charter was soon forfeited, and the land secured by it reverted to the government . In 1835 a new charter was granted to a second company, and in 1837 the Cairo City & Canal Co. was 957 formed .

By 1842, however, the

place was practically abandoned . A successful settlement was made in 1851-1854 under the auspices of the New York Trust Co.; the Illinois Central railway was opened in 1856; and Cairo was chartered as a city in 1857 . During the Civil War Cairo was an important strategic point, and was a military centre and depot of supplies of considerable importance for the Federal armies in the west . In 1862 Admiral Andrew H . Foote established at Mound City a naval depot, which was the basis of his operations on the Mississippi .