Editing Mound City, Illinois (section)

==History==
Mound City was incorporated in 1857 as a union of two cities: Mound City, founded by Major General Moses Marshal Rawlings, and Emporium City, a project of the Emporium Real Estate and Manufacturing Company, a group of [[Cincinnati]] and [[Cairo, Illinois|Cairo]] businessmen.  The city took its name from a Native American mound on which guests at General Rawlings' hotel would sleep in summer, as the breezes cooled them and dispersed the mosquitoes.<ref>History of Alexander, Union, and Pulaski Counties, Illinois, William H. Perrin, 1883</ref>

During the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], Admiral [[Andrew Hull Foote]] made Cairo the naval station for the [[Mississippi River Squadron]] of over 200 ironclads, timberclads, hospital ships, transports, and other vessels. Since [[Cairo, Illinois|Cairo]] had no land available for base facilities, the navy yard repair shop machinery was afloat aboard wharf-boats, old steamers, tugs, flat-boats, and rafts. The naval station was moved upstream in 1862 when {{cvt|10|acre}} of land was purchased in Mound City. The Mound City Naval Station included a shipyard with marine ways, a foundry, marine barracks, supply offices, and a hospital;<ref>{{cite web |url=https://cai.siu.edu/research/lab-archival-research/mound-city-naval-base.php |title=Mound City Naval Base |last=Wagner |first=M.J. |publisher=[[Southern Illinois University]] |access-date=7 June 2019 }}</ref> but many repair facilities remained afloat because the Mound City land was frequently inundated by flood waters.<ref>{{cite book |last=Miller |first=Francis Trevelyan |title =The Photographic History of The Civil War |publisher =Castle Books |volume =Six: The Navies |date =1957 |location =New York |pages =213–215 }}</ref>

[[USS Cairo|USS ''Cairo'']] was built in 1861 by James Eads and Co. of Mound City, under contract to the [[United States Department of War|War Department]]. She was commissioned in January 1862 as part of the Mississippi River Squadron, U.S. Navy Lieutenant James M. Prichett in command. She was a City-class ironclad gunboat constructed for the Union Navy during the American Civil War. She was the lead ship of the City-class gunboats, sometimes also called the ''Cairo'' class, and was named for Cairo, Illinois.  On December 12, 1862, just north of Vicksburg, Mississippi, the USS ''Cairo'' became the first ship sunk by electrically detonated torpedoes during its mission to destroy Confederate batteries and clear the Yazoo River of underwater mines.<ref>{{cite web |title=USS Cairo |url=https://www.civilwarvirtualmuseum.org/1863-1865/vicksburg/uss-cairo.php |website=Civil War Virtual Museum |publisher=Springfield-Greene County Library |access-date=7 December 2019}}</ref>

In 2017, Mound City elected Allison Madison, the city's first African-American and first female mayor.<ref>{{Cite news|first=Derrion |last= Henderson |authorlink=   |title= Mound City, IL elects first African American, female mayor  |newspaper=[[KFVS]]|date=April 6, 2017 |url=https://www.kfvs12.com/story/35091543/mound-city-il-elects-first-african-american-female-mayor/  |via=}}</ref>