Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for September 18, 2005 SMITH & GROVES CLOSES

From StaceEngland.com, news of the closing of a Cairo landmark...

Smith & Groves Tavern RIP

September 18, 2005

Oh sweet Cairo, why must you break my heart over and over again . . .

Marking a true end of an era, Smith and Groves Tavern at the corner of 8th Street and Commercial Avenue has been ordered shuttered by the city (license revoked) due to lack of structural integrity – in other words the building could cave in on patrons, including me, at any moment.

The writing was on the deteriorating walls when proprietor Duke Washam, (an extremely likeable and humorous bear of a man) died back in May, but I remained in a full state of denial up until this week. Smith and Groves opened directly after Prohibition ended in 1933 and was one of last vestiges of old Cairo, a friendly watering hole in what’s left of the downtown business district. It became my defacto office during most of the Cairo research, and although it served primarily white patrons I got the most unvarnished view of Cairo from people on all sides there. Smith and Groves showed up on GFCI on two songs; its picture window referenced in Can’t We All Get Along and the “walking 8th street out of the bar” line on Far From the Tree. They are also thanked in the liner notes.

Of course, taverns exist for the communal acts of drinking alcohol and discussion, and both took place in large quantities at Smith and Groves. Everyone was friendly and welcoming on every occasion.

According the Cairo Citizen newspaper, engineers say the north wall is listing badly, birds are in the second floor and rats and sewage are in the basement. It's unlikely any money is available to save the structure and it will eventually collapse like all the others.

Godspeed Duke and Smith and Groves – you both enriched my life in enumerable ways.

Again...I strongly endorse Stace England's "Greetings from Cairo, Illinois". ALL who know Cairo...or think they know Cairo...should hear Stace's take on its storied past. To order the CD, go to StaceEngland.com, click the "Listen/Buy" link, and follow the directions.

In the final cut on the CD, Stace laments that "each time another building falls down, a garden could grow in its place". What will be the legacy of yet another Cairo landmark?