I’ve recently noticed that a lot of towns dotting Southern Illinois have incredibly foreign names compared to the surrounding town. Thebes, Cairo, Karnak, etc., are all Egyptian cities that share names with these Illinois towns. Is there any particular reason for this beyond these towns being at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers similar to the Nile Delta? Or is there is there another reason since towns like Goshen and Dongola aren’t Egyptian cities but rather regions that have heavy biblical associations with them?
The origins of the term Little Egypt are somewhat clouded, but as someone who lives in the area, I will try my best to answer them.
The first person to come up with an Egypt related name for the region was John Badgley, a baptist missionary who was working in the area around the turn of the 18th century. While he went to the town of Edwardsville and looked out over the Mississippi River Bluffs, where he saw the river and the American bottom- the flood Mississippi River's flood plain. He named this the Goshen, after the land in Egypt which the Pharaoh had given Joseph. There were severals possible reasons-none explicit-as to why he would choose Goshen, a somewhat lesser well known biblical place (any experts on the religion please correct me), as a name.
First, as you state (no pun intended), the region is defined by the massive Missouri, Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. For many Americans, and especially the religiously knowledgable, the go to "great river" would be the one that is prominently referenced in the Bible. Furthermore, the region, much as we may not think of it today, was foreign. Just across the the Mississippi River lay New Spain and the French city of St. Louis. Goshen fit that meaning as it was a foreign to the people who settled it in the Bible. Lastly, and perhaps most intriguingly, the area had interesting relics of a past civilization, mounds! The region was dotted with all sorts of mounds at the beginning of the 18th century, the largest of which, Monk's Mound, still exists. Unfortunately, many of these mounds were destroyed in the 19th century by people who had little respect for those who built them, or the remains that were oftentimes found inside. To your well read 18th century American, however, all of these mounds made the area seem like a unique place with a telling similarity to Ancient Egypts pyramids.
Now that we understand the meaning of Goshen, how do we get some of the other names. Cairo was founded in 1817 by a team of investors, who probably reckoned that Cairo would be an exciting name to name (what they hoped to be) a bustling riverfront metropolis. The other important reason why Southern Illinois is referred to as little Egypt has to do with snow, of all things. During the Winter of 1830-1831, there was a huge amount of snow, which meant that the planting season had to be started in June. The one area of Illinois that didn't have this problem, however, was Southern Illinois. So, those living in Northern Illinois traveled down to Southern Illinois to buy grain. Being familiar with the Bible, they would say "we are sons of Jacob, going to Egypt to buy grain." This was in probable reference to a verse in Genesis:
"The famine is sore in the land of Canaan; now therefore let thy servants dwell in the land of Goshen."
TL, DR: The name Little Egypt was chosen for a variety of a number of reasons, which included geographical and historical similarities, as well as providing food relief to the rest of the state in times of need.
I hope this helps!
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