Federated reports that sales are down at the Marshall Fields locations that have been converted to Macy’s [Trib].

Federated Chairman and CEO Terry Lundgren said he was “pleased” with sales at the legacy Macy’s stores and at Bloomingdales, “however sales in the new Macy’s locations were disappointing in the quarter.” Total sales in the first quarter fell 0.2 percent to $5.92 billion, missing the company’s forecast of $6 billion to $6.1 billion.

I told you so?

The only issue with declaring victory over the numbskulls from New York is that retail sales have been weak overall. Yes, the report states that results in older Macy’s locations have been fine, giving hope that Federated will soon wake up to the truth that pissing on a town’s history won’t win you customers. But it’s still too soon, and there’s still the quite logical idea that many customers refuse business not out of some historical loyalty but the fact that they don’t like the new brands they find behind their formerly favorite doors.

Let’s just hope that sales at longtime Macy’s stores are through the roof for the rest of the year while the Fields locations languish. What little hope there is to revive the Fields name relies on Federated execs having no other excuse than customers don’t want to do business with the red starred nameplate.

Fields Fans Chicago

Trib: ‘Macy’s Makes It Obvious’

The Ohio River ends at Cairo, Illinois, where its crystal blue water flows into the Mississippi’s muddy brown in nature’s best large-scale recreation of the interaction of oil and water. From the east, the Ohio creeps along the Kentucky border, hugging the Bluegrass State even after it has ceded way to the Mighty Miss; several miles south of the confluence, the brown, naturally polluted waters of the Mississippi cling to the Missouri side of the river, refusing to be mixed with the bluer liquid of its tributary. Only a bit downstream from Cairo, the true meeting place of the two giant rivers, do the two truly become one, brown and blue mixing together en route to Lake New Orleans.

Cairo once benefited from its position as outlook of this confluence. Its importance during the Civil War could not be overstated, as the railroads brought supplies straight from Chicago, fueling the Union’s incursion into the western states of the Confederacy. Named Fort Defiance, the southern tip of Illinois saw nothing close to a battle, but was still a rather valuable piece of real estate. After the war, Cairo’s success continued, as riverboats passed through the town on the southern tip of the Prairie State, as did the railroad as it headed towards the hub of Chicago. Industry moved to town, eager to exploit the one-two punch of the fertile farmland and numerous methods of transportation.

In the middle twentieth century, the community’s fortunes began to change. This was the first free town many former slaves came across in the days of the Underground Railroad, and long after the thirteenth amendment it remained the southernmost city in the great state of Illinois, the Land of Lincoln, and therefore a welcome site to African Americans migrating north out of the harsh reality of Jim Crow. This didn’t mean they were welcome in Cairo, though, a city that more resembled the south than the urbane, northeast Prairie State, and as late as the 1960s it was a town severely divided. Desegregation was forced, and as more African Americans continued to move in, many of the white residents simply fled the city, its economy decreasing anyway thanks to the lessened reliance on riverboat and rail traffic over the previous decades.

This is an odd town. Situated on a peninsula, the Mississippi on the west and the Ohio just a mile or two to the east, the town is a strip, US 51 its stem, with residential neighborhoods branching out towards each of the mighty rivers. Entering the city, you feel as if you’re entering a medieval serfdom, with a double train track and levee wall bordering a tunnel with the word “CAIRO” spelled out in white letters over the red background, warning you of your entry into this southern kingdom. Enter this gate and ye be damned.

It is a ghost town as well, with scores of businesses boarded up, others still open but sitting closed on weekends, no residents sticking around to offer their patronage and certainly no out-of-towners bothering to wade through such a worthless hamlet. US 60 and 62 share their sentiments, crossing over from Missouri at Fort Defiance, only to take a sharp turn right and navigate the Ohio in order to quickly enter Kentucky; the two US highways spend all of 3,500 feet in the Prairie State, none of which approach the city limit of Cairo.

Such ignorance of the city is a shame: it is quite beautiful if one looks past its dead-on impression of a ghetto. Among its attractions are a classic downtown, several antique neighborhoods welcoming you with an ornate metal arch, a classic stone and metal National Guard armory that evokes thoughts of Norman Rockwell, the City Motel which once dotted postcards but now sits closed as a landmark of the city’s depression, and a US Customs House that once served to welcome river vessels to United States soil but now serves as a museum to the area’s rich history - one that may be closing before the end of the year. As mentioned, all of this is arranged as a strip, one that narrows slightly as you approach the confluence of the two great rivers and the twenty-first state in the Union just keeps running out of soil.

One doesn’t wish to stop and take too many pictures, less for fear of crime or one’s personal safety as much as the depression this town will set upon you. So storied in history, so unique and worthy of our attention, the lack of industry (its last major employer closed two years ago) or any attraction that would draw a person to live in such a rundown area has caused the population to shrink dramatically - from 14,000 in the 1940s to 3500 today. In 1990, the mayor told the Cairo High School graduating class to leave town - there was nothing left for them at home.

What is left is a wonderful natural attraction - the merging of two of the most powerful forces of nature in the United States. That park has gone to hell just like the town that sits to the north; a lookout post originally designed to resemble the steamboats that once sailed up and down these two rivers now sits unrecognizable, simply one ugly, metal perch riding on top of another. The state wanted nothing to do with the land, and it took a group of local citizens to lease the park and keep it open for the public - a sign that maybe not all in Cairo is lost, even if things can’t get much bleaker.

The first eight pictures below were taken just north of Thames Thebes, Illinois, the southernmost place where Illinois 3, the Great River Road, runs right along the Mighty Miss. From there, it curves inland, ending at Cairo just a couple miles before the State of Illinois does itself. The final sixteen pictures are from Fort Defiance, where the Mississippi meets the Ohio.

Lost in the rural emptiness of western Randolph County, Illinois (just south of Metro East St. Louis) are quite a few hidden gems. Amidst the farms and taverns and lonely, viewless drives one can find the sites of two French forts, a system of gorgeous natural bluffs along the Mississippi River, a beautifully restored circa 1800 French mansion, and the first capital of Illinois, now reduced by Mother Nature and her unforgiving river systems to a virtual ghost town. Here, part two of three in a brief series on these landmarks: Fort de Chartres.

In the late 1600s, the French moved down the Mississippi River system from French Canada to increase their fur trapping business; most colonists were not interested in settling down in the New World like their British counterparts, but instead planned to become rich off the abundant furs that could be captured in the Americans and return to Europe rolling in the bling bling. With the English in the east moving into what would become the pre-French and Indian War Colonies, French settlers claimed the eventual Northwest Territories and the Mississippi down to the port of New Orleans at the mouth of that mighty river.

Last week I briefly covered the history of the lost city of Kaskaskia (2000 population: nine,) the oldest city in Illinois, founded in 1703. The first capital of Illinois and hub of area trading under both the French and British, it was protected under the former landlord not only by Fort Kaskaskia to the immediate east, but by Fort de Chartres eighteen miles up the Mississippi River. That fort has been reconstructed, and now stands as one of Illinois’ most attractive historical landmarks.

The French threw up the original log fences of the fort in the 1720s to protect the local fur traders from the Fox Indians, who for some reason did not want to recognize the exclusive trade charter granted the colonists by French King Louis XV. The Mississippi laughed at the French effort to protect their people, and promptly ate the original Fort with one surge of her muddy waters. Oddly not wanting to surrender, the French rebuilt the Fort a bit more inland, but abandoned her a decade later as the primary garrison in the area moved to Fort Kaskaskia.

Several decades later, the French felt a need to build a stronger fort to protect that area of the Mississippi and returned to the site near Prairie du Rocher. This time they abandoned the lumberyard and quarried limestone from the beautiful bluffs that lined the east border of Rocher, creating a strong, river-proof (ha!) fortress four miles west of town. They would only occupy the area for another ten years, though, thanks to the French and Indian War. The British occupied the Fort in 1765 and watched as the Mississippi wore down the south wall of the complex, reminding her new tenants that they most certainly were, like the French before them, her bitch. “Nuts to this,” said the British. “We’ll plant our troops at Kaskaskia instead.”

So the Fort was slowly worn down by the Mississippi and her sporadic flooding, and by 1900 only the powder magazine remained.

The modern history of Fort de Chartres (pronounced “Fort dee Chart-ers” by locals, since they are but dumb rednecks) is as almost as fascinating as its tenure under the French. After the State of Illinois purchased the land and restored the walls of the fort during the Great Depression (it was one of many WPA projects in the area,) it became a popular tourist attraction, and massively attended Rendezvous celebration sprung up at the beginning of every June. Then the Flood of 1993 came, and the Mississippi River eyed the fort with the same evil view she took upon the city of Kaskaskia a century before.

In the summer of 1993, there was rarely a levee in the St. Louis area that was not topped. Valmeyer to the north of Fort de Chartres fell, and flood water streamed south on a collision course with the small French village while more of the river lapped at her western levee walls. The Army Corps of Engineers came up with a brilliant plan: dynamite the Rocher levee, and the southbound water will meet the river water and rejoin it, saving the town. This worked perfectly, and Rocher was spared.

To the west, Fort de Chartres was not as lucky, as fifteen feet of water put most of her structure in the eyesight of the fish. The fort survived, though, and today it’s hard to believe how much of the building was undersea during the flood.

More Images:

Next week: Fort Kaskaskia. Which is a field. Nothing more. So we’ll do some French guy’s home as well.

Usually for one to cross from Illinois into Missouri, or vice versa, one must traverse the Mighty Mississippi. There are various ways to do this, of course, including (but not limited to, especially if one possesses the powers of the supernatural) bridges, ferries, boats and by air. If one can find the right bridge, this privileged individual can walk or cycle; the Eads Bridge in downtown St. Louis and the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge (Old US 66) in northern St. Louis City allows this, and many take advantage. No matter the mode of transportation, you must in some way conquer the Mississippi River.

In St. Mary, Missouri, though, one passes between the two states without paying the Miss any mind at all.

The first state capitol of Illinois was in the Village of Kaskaskia, one of the oldest communities in the state. Founded by the French in 1703, she saw numerous French traders sail down from Quebec and the rest of French Canada to settle at the confluence of the Mississippi and Kaskaskia Rivers to trap furs to be sent down to New Orleans. As French influence shifted to British, Kaskaskia’s importance did not lessen; she remained the economic hub of the region, protected by the British Fort Gage, just to the west of the old French Fort Kaskaskia. The area was captured during the Revolutionary War by George Rogers Clark, and the inhabitants of the city celebrated their land’s independence from England by ringing the Liberty Bell of the West; a gift from King Louis XV of France, the 650-pound bell was given to the Catholic Church of Kaskaskia in 1843, complete with the inscription, “For the church of Illinois - by the gift of the King.”

Illinois entered the union in 1818, and her first capital was, of course, Kaskaskia. As settlers moved upstate, however, legislators decided a more centrally located capital would be necessary, so the statehouse was relocated to Vandalia. Just in time.

In 1844, the Mississippi, possibly because of an old Indian curse, or maybe just angry to have Illinois’ capital robbed from her banks, became angry and flooded the community, driving away many residents. 1881 saw a complete break from her path, as the river moved east, eating through the first two miles of the inferior tributary Kaskaskia, leaving only a minor, incomplete channel to the west.

Kaskaskia, Illinois was now in Missouri.

The courts, as recently as 1970, decided that the land would remain Land of Lincoln, meaning that there is technically Illinois soil west of the Mississippi. There is a small channel dividing the small town of St. Mary’s from Kaskaskia Island, so once again we do have to use a bridge to jump from the Show Me State to the Prairie State. In addition, don’t try to get there from mainland Illinois: the only bridge is on the Missouri side, since no major Illinois roads pass close enough to the Miss, and building a massive bridge across that river just for Kaskaskia would be silly; the small, narrow, poorly guardrailed stretch of pavement on the west side of the island is sufficient enough for local traffic and the small amount of tourism the community deals in.

Little but farmland remains on Kaskaskia. The 2000 census saw a 71% drop in population, down from 32 to 9. Technically, only one village in Illinois, Ohlman, has a lower population (that city came in with a big fat zero; that’s hard to beat.) (Olhman Footnote) There are a few more families on the island, outside of the incorporated town, but the flat land reveals little civilization, just several groups of homes no larger than a city block, one of which houses the old Catholic Church and the Liberty Bell of the West, no longer able to be rung thanks to a large crack down its side. Floods continue to threaten the island, pummeling her horribly in 1973 and 1993, both years cutting off access to the land by covering the roads that lead to her western bridge to the mainland.

Looking out over the fields of Kaskaskia seems eerie. Not that this was ever a community so bustling as to rival modern day metropolitan areas, but it was the preeminent civilization along the Mississippi River two decades into the nineteenth century. Now, only a handful of homes and their accompanying farmland remains.

You can see the rolling hills and trees of Illinois to the east, but you must go west to return there. You’re a prisoner of Missouri.

(Upon further research, Olhman has successfully appealed their 2000 Census result, and now has 148 people. So Kaskaskia wins our prize for lowest. populated. city. ever. Go back up.)

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Next week: Fort de Chartres.