South Georgia Spotlight: Cairo, Georgia
Cairo (pronounced KAY-row) earned its best-known nickname the old-fashioned way. In the 1800s, Seaborn Anderson Roddenbery began selling open-kettle cane syrup from a horse-drawn buggy, and the W.B. Roddenbery Company grew into a business that marketed Georgia cane syrup across the country. The town became known as the Syrup City, and the name stuck. Cairo High School’s teams are still the Syrupmakers, and the school mascot is a syrup pitcher. Cairo is also known as Georgia’s Hospitality City.
The town was incorporated in 1870 and became the seat of Grady County, named for Atlanta Constitution editor Henry W. Grady, in the early 1900s. Its rich soil and long growing season supported a diverse farming economy, including peanuts, pecans, and cucumbers so prized they were nicknamed “Cairo Beauties.” Today Cairo sits in the heart of Georgia’s peanut belt, about 30 miles north of Tallahassee on the Florida line.
Downtown reflects that heritage. The Zebulon Theatre, a single-screen movie house that opened in 1936, still shows films. The Grady County Museum and History Center tells the story of the county through photographs, antiques, and memorabilia, and the Roddenbery Memorial Library houses a local history and genealogy room. The Grady Cultural Center occupies a renovated 1915 warehouse built for the syrup barrel business and now hosts weddings, banquets, and community events. The Cairo Antique Car Museum is the hub of the Great Southern Antique Car Rally each May, and the community also celebrates with Halloween downtown, Cavalry Mule Day in November, and the Christmas Parade in December. Outdoors, Azalea Park and Southern Terrace Park serve the community, and Tired Creek Lake gives Grady County a lake for recreation.
On the economic development side, Cairo has been working to position Grady County for growth. The Grady County Joint Development Authority markets available industrial acreage, existing building space for a quick start-up, a ready workforce, and transportation corridors to I-75 and I-10.