Sumer, Justin, Collin, and Robert E. Lee visit Cairo, IL

Sumer, Justin, Collin, and Robert E. Lee took a trip to Cairo, IL. They visited several places while they were there. Robert told them all about the time he was in a steamboat race and landed in Cairo. He told us it should have been a for sure win, but Natchez cheated. (We looked it up later and discovered Lee had been drinking a bit when he landed in Cairo and ran aground not long after leaving Cairo)
Once we were in Cairo, IL., we first visited the Magnolia Manor. The Manor was built in 1869. It is one of the few standing houses left in Cairo. The Manor was visited by Ulysses S. Grant when he was in command of the civil war fort, Fort Defiance. The Manor is open for tours.

Next, they visited the Riverlore. Riverlore was built in 1865. It is an 11 bedroom mansion that is also known as, Millionaire's Row. It was built for Captain William Parker Halliday. He was a bank owner.

The next stop was the Cairo public Library. Mrs. Alford B. Safford had the Safford Memorial Building turned into the library as a memorial to her husband. The library contains many artifacts from older building in Cairo, such as the chandelier from the Opera House.

.

Their next stop was the Custom House. The United States Custom House was started in 1867 and has housed the U.S. Post Office, Customs, the Weather Bureau, the Federal Court Room, and the Cairo Police Department. Today the building is just a Museum. It holds, Civil War and local historical items, desk used by Gen. U.S. Grant, an 1865 Cairo fire wagon, a scale model of the gunboat U.S.S. Cairo, the historic hamburger/popcorn wagon. The house is open for tours.

Our last stop was to the Post Office which was built in 1942. The same post office is still used today.
Whew, what a trip! By the end, as you can tell from the pictures, baby Collin and Robert E. Lee were getting cranky! We traveled 121.36 miles. So far, Robert has traveled 2845.08 miles!!