Cairo, NE

Cairo, pronounced "Care-Oh," is a Hall County village that began in 1886 when the Grand Island and Wyoming Central Railroad reached the area. The Lincoln Land Company laid out the town along the new tracks and gave it an Egyptian name, then carried the theme into streets called Egypt, Berber, Thebe, Alexandria, Medina, Mecca, and Nile. The village sits about 14 miles northwest of Grand Island at the edge of the Nebraska Sandhills, in farm country that helped the railroad town hang on after other nearby stops faded. Cairo is a prairie rail town with one of Nebraska's more memorable street maps.