Alexander County is the southernmost and southwesternmost county in the U.S. state of Illinois. As of the 2020 census, the population was 5,240. Its county seat is Cairo and its western boundary is formed by the Mississippi River.
Alexander County is part of the Cape Girardeau, MO-IL Metropolitan Statistical Area which is made up of jurisdictions on both sides of the Mississippi River.
History
Alexander County was organized from part of Union County in 1819. It was named for William M. Alexander, a physician who practiced in the town of America (the first county seat). Alexander was elected as a representative to the state House, where he became Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives in 1822.
The county was initially developed for agriculture and settled by numerous migrants from the Upper South. The county seat was moved to Unity in 1833, then to Thebes in 1843, and finally to Cairo in 1860. America, the first county seat, is now within Pulaski County, which was formed from Alexander and Johnson counties in 1843.
Settled largely by white migrants from the Upland South, southern Illinois had many racial attitudes of the South. As African Americans settled in Cairo to seek jobs on steamboats, ferries, in shipping and railroads, there were tensions between the racial groups. White residents sometimes used violence and terrorism, as well as discrimination, to keep black residents in second-class positions. They excluded them from the city government and the police and fire departments, and relatively few African Americans were hired to work in the local stores.
There were three lynchings of blacks in Alexander County in the years between Reconstruction and the early 20th century. The county had the second-highest number of lynchings of African Americans in all of Illinois. The most notorious of these was the lynching of Will James before a crowd of white spectators estimated at 10,000, in the county seat of Cairo on November 11, 1909. James was accused of murdering a young white woman. Later that same evening, the mob lynched a white man named Henry Salzner, hanging him in the courthouse square for allegedly killing his wife. Neither man had had a trial, nor was anyone ever prosecuted for the lynchings, even though Illinois had passed an anti-lynching law four years earlier.
Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (6.8%) is water. Its borders are partly defined by the Mississippi River and the Ohio River. The lowest point in the state of Illinois is located on the Mississippi River in Cairo in Alexander County, where it flows out of Illinois and into Kentucky.
Adjacent counties
Union County - north
Ballard County, Kentucky - southeast
Pulaski County - east
Mississippi County, Missouri - south
Scott County, Missouri - west
Cape Girardeau County, Missouri - northwest
National protected areas
Cypress Creek National Wildlife Refuge (part) Shawnee National Forest (part)
Major highways
Interstate 57
U.S. Route 51
U.S. Route 60
U.S. Route 62
Illinois Route 3
Illinois Route 37
Illinois Route 127
Illinois Route 146
Climate and weather
In recent years, average temperatures in the county seat of Cairo have ranged from a low of in January to a high of in July, although a record low of was recorded in January 1985 and a record high of was recorded in June 1954. Average monthly precipitation ranged from in September to in May.
Law enforcement
The Tamms Correctional Center, a now shuttered super-maximum correctional facility operated by the Illinois Department of Corrections, was located in Tamms, as was the State of Illinois execution chamber. Prior to the January 11, 2003 commutation of death row sentences, male death row inmates were housed in Tamms, Menard, and Pontiac correctional centers. After that date, only Pontiac continued to host the male death row. On January 4, 2013, after years of controversy over inmate conditions, the prison officially closed, negatively impacting the county's economy.
In late September 2009, press reports indicated that the Alexander County Sheriff's office had five of its seven squad cars repossessed as payments had not been made. The sheriff once had 29 deputies, but was reduced to just five at the time of the reports. The Illinois State Police have provided assistance to the county with additional patrols.