Mile 44.0 - LBD Thebes, Il

John Ruskey

20 Apr 2026 � 1 min read

44 LBD Thebes, Il

Once a thriving river town, Thebes is now a sleepy landing after having gone through several transfusions of life, including the steamboat era, the railroad era, and the modern highway era. Thebes got the steamboats and the highway, but it was the railroad that killed Thebes, when no station stop was built. Thebes is ideally located at the base of short bluff, with neighborhoods behind and on top of the bluff. Nothing much in the way of business remains downtown except a Pentecostal Church and a decrepit campground, functional but unmaintained. The smattering of houses in various neighborhoods are still inhabited. The 1993 flood dealt downtown Thebes a hard blow, from which it recovered better than some riverside villages such as the ghost town Seventy-Six. The bluff above downtown Thebes is dominated by the former courthouse of Alexander County, which was designed and built in Southern Gothic style and features a two-story porch and four giant front pillars. A striking half moon attic window punctuates the front facade. Legend says that Dred Scott, a slave whose Supreme Court decision set back black rights by declaring that African-American slaves had no claim to freedom, may have been imprisoned in the courthouse jail awaiting trial in St. Louis. Abraham Lincoln practiced law here. Thebes, like the city of Cairo, also in Alexander County, Illinois, is named after the Egyptian city of the same name. This part of southern Illinois is known as “Little Egypt.” In literature, Thebes is the home village of Captain Andy Hawks, his wife Parthenia Ann Hawks and daughter Magnolia in the Edna Ferber novel Show Boat. (Wikipedia)

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