CAIRO'S MAGNOLIA MANOR TO OPEN TODAY

CAIRO, Ill. -- Historic Magnolia Manor will open for the Christmas season today.

All 14 rooms of the 1869 mansion will be decorated in the theme "I Believe in Santa."

"Every room includes Christmas trees and a Santa Claus," said Tracy Hughes, curator at Magnolia Manor. "The Santas will range from old-fashioned to pioneer to modern Santas."

A giant 14-foot tree will be set up in the drawing room of the elegant old mansion.

The mansion opens today at 1 p.m. and will maintain holiday house hours from 1 to 5 p.m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It will reopen the weekend of Dec. 2 and 3, from 1 to 5 p.m.

Tickets for holiday house will be available at the Manor. Admission is $4 for adults, $2 for children 5-12, and free to children 4 and under.

The Holiday House is the major fund-raising event of the year at the Magnolia Manor, which is owned by the Cairo Historical Association and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Two other historic Cairo buildings -- the Cairo Library and Custom House Museum -- will be open from 1 to 5 p.m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday and Dec. 2-3. The library and custom house also are on the National Register of Historic Places.

Cairo was declared a "Port of Delivery" by the 33rd Congress in 1854. The custom house was constructed after the Civil War, completed in 1872. The building, which has housed custom offices, a post office, police station, federal court and other government agencies, closed in 1975. It was reopened as a museum in 1992.

The Cairo Public Library was built in 1884 and presented to the city by Mrs. Anna M. Safford.

President Ulysses S. Grant was a frequent visitor to Magnolia Manor. Grant, a general in the Army before he became president, had been stationed in Cairo five months during the Civil War, from September 1861 to February 1862.

Grant's headquarters were in the Holliday Hotel, a huge structure that overlooked the Ohio River. The Holliday Hotel in its final days served as a "storage shed" for the city of Cairo before giving way to a demolition crew in the late 1970s. The hotel had been damaged by fire earlier in the 1970s.

During his visits to the Manor, Grant occupied what is now referred to as "The Grant Room." The furniture in Grant's room is still furnished with the original pieces including an ornate bed that were there during his visits.

The mansion has had only five owners during its 120-year history -- Charles and Adelia Lippit Galigher, H.H. Candee, P.T. Langan, F.W. King and the current owner, the Cairo Historical Society.

During the Civil War, Galigher sold flour to the government for use in hardtack biscuits to feed soldiers. It was through these transactions that he became friends with Grant.

Construction was started on the mansion after the Civil War. Bricks were fired locally at Klein's Brick Yard. Stone and ornamental iron grill were also produced locally. The mansion was completed in 1872.

Rooms in the mansion have high ceilings and each room has its own fireplace. A circular staircase leads to the third floor.

Across the street from Magnolia Manor is another large mansion, Riverlore, which was constructed by William Parker Halliday. To the south is a nine-room mansion that is now a bed-and-breakfast operation.