The Boatman's Memorial is located at Fort Defiance Park south of Cairo on route 51. Fort Defiance became the park that the people of Cairo saved and established. A grassroots organization of Cairo citizens, Operation Enterprise, leased it from the state to renovate and maintain. The park looks over the constant meeting of the vast Ohio and Mississippi rivers, Refusing to merge, the Ohio waters become a blue ribbon rippling far down the brown Mississippi currents.
Gulls wheel above the placid barges and tugs navigating the point.
In the Spring, the Mississippi may churn and grind with the northern ice. The demarcation between the two rivers is an ever-fascinating and changing phenomenon. Fort Defiance, the Civil War post commanded by General U. S. Grant, guarded the confluence and became the supply base for the western thrust into the Confederacy. Over the past century, the rivers have caused the point to extend southward over a mile from the fort's original site.