It’s been ten years since my last visit to Cairo, Illinois, and it felt like it was time to check in on the town that played a critical role in the history of America, and in St. Louis. It was from here that Ulysses S. Grant, formerly of St. Louis, launched his invasion south, changing the course of the Civil War and world history, using ironclads built in St. Louis by James Eads and also in nearby Mound City.

But the ironclads are all gone, and the shining beacon that Cairo once represented for escaped slaves fleeing the South during the Civil War has long ago flickered out. Today, you pass through that gigantic, intimidating floodgate and you immediately know you’re in a different Cairo than the one of General Grant.

The lower half of the peninsula, fortified by a massive circumvallating levee, has largely become a forest, the oldest part of the town of course having the oldest buildings. The oldest buildings, of course, are abandoned first and they collapse first, too.

Commercial Street, as we’ll see, is down to two buildings. I assume before my next visit they’ll be completely gone.

It’s sort of hard to believe that these photos below are the same city.

This trip, we’ll dive a lot deeper than my first trip, visiting lots of the same places from last time to see how they’re doing, and also seeing many new places.

You might be wondering, what does this have to do with St. Louis? It has a lot to do with St. Louis. I call Cairo a laboratory experiment in what happens when everything that could possibly go wrong in an American city goes wrong. There are valuable lessons to be learned here, yet again.