Southern Illinois town pins hopes on river port development – Capitol News IL

A development project has been on the drawing board in Cairo for at least a decade, but it's now getting a big boost from the state with $40 million from the Rebuild Illinois capital improvements program to develop an enormous river port along the Mississippi River at Cairo. The hope is that the project will spur hundreds of construction jobs, and then hundreds more permanent jobs for workers at the port – workers who, it is hoped, would buy homes in the area and provide an economic base for the redevelopment of grocery stores, drug stores, gas stations and other basic amenities lacking in the town.