Memphis History
Memphis, Tennessee was founded in 1819 by John Overton, James Winchester,
and Andrew "Old Hickory" Jackson. The site atop the fourth
Chickasaw bluff, they felt, was an ideal place for the city they
envisioned. The location provided a certain amount of natural security:
it had served as a fort for early French and Spanish explorers, and the
high bluffs created a natural barrier against periodic flooding from
the Mississippi River. The surrounding countryside was fertile enough to
support a substantial agricultural economy, and Memphis's location
nearly midway between New Orleans and the Ohio Valley would make it a
valuable river port and trading center.
The new city quickly lived up to those early expectations. By
the late 1840s, flatboats loaded with trade goods and cotton-laden
riverboats lined the riverbank; Peddlers, fur traders, gamblers, and
"river rats" filled the city's hotels and saloons; and cotton
merchants flocked to Front Street's Cotton Row to buy and sell the
area's high-quality "white gold." Even the War between the
States, during which the city spent two years under federal occupation,
failed to slow its growth. When the war ended, Memphis - though still a
rough~and~tumble river town known mainly for its muddy streets and
lawlessness - was the South's sixth largest city with some 55,000
citizens. It was also one of the few Southern cities that had not been
burned, shelled, or looted during the four-year conflict.
Luck, however, was not on Memphis's side for very long. In 1872,
and again in 1878, the yellow fever epidemics devastated the city,
killing more than 5,000 people, and sending another 25,000 to seek
safety in other cities. As a result, land values fell drastically, and
crops were left to die in the fields.
The city lost its charter, forcing it into bankruptcy.
Newspapers across the state suggested that the city should be burned
and abandoned. But instead, of yielding to the pressures, Memphis
showed the resilience and self-reliance that would mark its passage
into the 20th century.
The city sold bonds and used the money to finance a new
drainage system, improve sanitation, and pave the notoriously muddy
streets. It formed a merchants exchange to seek ways of diversifying
the local economy, thus making it less dependent on cotton.
By the early 1900s, Memphis was one of the world's leading
hardwood lumber markets, and local factories turned out a variety of
goods - from hardware supplies to farm tools. But the real sign of the
city's recovery lay in the confidence of its residents. The population
of Memphis now stood at more than 100,000, nearly twice the pre-yellow
fever census.
As Memphis made its economic comeback, history of another sort
was being made on Beale Street. Beale Street in those days was a teeming
neighborhood that bore little resemblance to the stately cotton
merchants' mansions lining Adams Street. Beale was a simmering cultural
cauldron of dice parlors, gin mills, pool halls, and bawdy houses, and
its home-grown music reflected what its residents most keenly felt; the
blues. W. C. Handy, a wandering black musician and composer, was the
first to put down on paper the sometimes grim but always hopeful mix of
field hollers, gospel songs, cotton-baling calls, and African
tribal songs.
Forty years later, Beale Street and those same rhythms infected
a young, aspiring musician named Elvis Aaron Presley, who would forever
change the face and the sound of American popular music. The
contributions of these two musical innovators made Memphis the
"Home of the Blues" and the "Birthplace of Rock~and~
Roll."
From 1910 until the early 1950s, the destiny of Memphis lay
largely in the hands of E. H. "Boss" Crump. Though he
officially served as mayor from 1910 to 1915, he was widely regarded as
the unofficial mayor for nearly 40 years after that. Though in many
ways it was both paternalistic and self-serving, the Crump machine is
largely credited with bringing in high-paying industrial jobs, putting
Memphis on firm financial footing, and significantly increasing the
number and quality of city services.
Crump would no doubt be pleased with many of the changes that
have taken place in Memphis in the last 30 years. The city now boasts
one on the nation's largest and best-equipped regional medical
facilities. It has become the country's leading distribution center,
where air, rail, highway, and river connections converge from the
four corners of the world.
Downtown revitalization has proceeded at a rapid pace with
the development of Mud Island, The Pyramid, the National Civil Rights
Museum, the Main Street Trolley, and hundreds of new homes and
apartments. And Beale Street is once again one of the city's favorite
gathering spots with dozens of fashionable restaurants and
nightclubs.
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