About Cairo
Cairo is a village in Hall County, north-west of Grand Island, on the edge of the Nebraska Sandhills. It falls within the Grand Island micropolitan statistical area. The 2020 census counted 822 residents, up from 785 in 2010. Elevation is 1,952 feet. The village calls itself the Oasis of the Prairie.
History
In early 1886 the Lincoln Land Company, a Burlington Railroad subsidiary, bought the farmsteads of George and Henry Bussell along the proposed route of the Grand Island and Wyoming Central Railroad. The town was platted by July of that year, and several houses and businesses were standing by the time track was laid in June. Cairo incorporated as a village on 18 November 1892. Voters approved bonds for a water plant in 1909, and telephone service began in 1912.
The name
Cairo is named for Cairo, the capital of Egypt, and the promoters carried the theme through the plat. Street names include Egypt, Berber, Thebe, Alexandria, Medina, Mecca and Nile. The desert association was not the selling point: the land company advertised the place as a town in one of the most fertile farming districts in the state. A state historical marker on the subject stands at the north ball fields.
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Cairo was founded in 1886 when the Grand Island and Wyoming Central Railroad extended a line to the site, and was incorporated as a village in 1892. The town takes its name from Cairo, Egypt, a theme carried through in a number of local street names. Known by the motto "Oasis of the Prairie," Cairo is part of the Grand Island micropolitan area.
A Grand Island-area village founded in 1886 and named for Cairo, Egypt, known locally by the motto "Oasis of the Prairie."