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In the late 1700s, the city of Memphis existed only in the minds of three Nashville visionaries - Judge John Overton and Generals James Winchester and Andrew Jackson (who in 1829 became this country's seventh president). The trio saw the benefits of the bluff location, high above any floodwaters the Mississippi might throw at them. And it was centrally located between the Ohio Valley and the port of New Orleans, making it an ideal location for river traffic and trading. In all, it was the perfect spot on which to build a new town.
After the area was acquired by the United States in 1797, developers Jackson, Winchester, and Overton purchased land atop the fourth Chickasaw Bluff and began shaping plans for their great city on the river. The town was laid out in a checkerboard design, with business districts, several square blocks reserved as parks, and a wide "public promenade" along the bluff. It was Winchester - an ancient-history bluff - who suggested naming the town after a grand Egyptian city on the Nile.
The land purchased by the Nashville trio was first settled in 1819 and became incorporated as the city of Memphis in 1826. In just 30 years, the small town grew into a vibrant community, and, by 1850, Memphis was already the sixth-largest city in the South. With constant river traffic and a solid economy centered around what was widely considered the finest cotton in the world, the city quickly established itself as the capital of the Mid-South.
But then came the rumblings of war. Because of its ideal position as a distribution center for the entire region, Memphis became a focal point of the Union's western campaign. In June 1862, it took Federal gunboats less than 90 minutes to crush the Confederate fleet and secure the city.
In a way, though, Memphis was lucky. The city had been conquered, but not destroyed like other southern strongholds. In fact, many businesses and industries were hardly affected by the Union occupation. As a result, the underground quietly shipped cotton, food, medicine, and other necessities to Confederate forces throughout the region.
Yet, despite its quick recuperation, Memphis was soon invaded by a force much deadlier than war. As it had done on three other occasions, yellow fever engulfed the city in the summer of 1878. Within two months, the disease claimed some 17,000 victims, 5,000 of whom died, while nearly 25,000 people - half of the city's population - fled Memphis in a desperate attempt to outrun what was often called the "yellow jack." Land values plummeted, cotton fields withered away, and the population dwindled. Reeling in debt and apparently unable to recover, Memphis gave up its charter. It was no longer a city - instead, it was just a "taxing district" under state control.
Remarkably, though, Memphis began to rebuild. A newly formed board of health and the discovery of a pure artesian water supply eliminated the many backyard wells that served as breeding grounds for yellow fever-carrying mosquitoes. The new Memphis Merchants Exchange set out to diversify the local economy and broaden it beyond the realm of cotton. Within a few years, local businesses were turning out lumber products (eventually making Memphis one of the largest lumber markets in the world), assorted iron and steel products, hardware, mules, and dry goods.
By 1892 Memphis had erected the first railroad bridge over the Mississippi south of St. Louis and stretched 100 miles of trolley car track throughout the city, while the Memphis Light and Power Company had spun a web of electric lines to practically every home and business in town. By the turn of the century, the city had more than 100,000 residents, making it the third-largest city in the South.
The first decades of the 20th century were dominated by the presence of Edward Hull "Boss" Crump, who served as mayor of the city from 1910 through 1915 and who controlled local and state elections throughout the first half of the century. By most accounts, Crump ran Memphis like it was his own personal corporation and gained a number of enemies here and throughout the state as a result. Yet, through the workings of his vast political machine, Crump provided the city with a solid economic foundation and an array of municipal services.
In the past several decades, Memphis has emerged not only as one of the South's largest cities, but also as a global business center. With the continued prominence of FedEx in the air-cargo industry, as well as the city's other distribution and transportation services and the state-of-the-art medical facilities, a multitude of international businesses and skilled professionals have relocated here. As a result, the city's economy has become increasingly diversified, enabling Memphis to weather the tough times and prosper when the times are good.
Today, the city of Memphis continues to build on its strong legacy of resilence and hard work, offering a progressive vision of the future while continuing to provide opportunity today for all of its citizens.
Few-if any- cities in the world can boast of a musical legacy as influential as Memphis'.
At the turn of the century, Beale Street became legendary not just for the carousing that went on there, but for the type of music being played on its sidewalks and in its clubs. The "blues," they called it, a blend of spirituals, field hollers, and New Orleans-style jazz - a sound so mournful you just had to feel good when you heard it.
W.C. Handy, a local composer and trumpet player, was one of the first to set this unique musical style on paper with such compositions as "Memphis Blues" and "St. Louis Blues." Handy and a host of others helped earn for Beale Street the lasting reputation of this thoroughly American art form. In the early 1950s, Chester Burnett and Riley King (better known to the world as Howlin' Wolf and B.B. King), former sharecroppers who migrated to Memphis from the Mississippi Delta, took the legacy of Handy and other early composers, amplified the sound with electricity, and introduced blues to the mainstream.
A few years later, a young truck driver with the unlikely name of Elvis Presley cut his first demo for Sam Phillips at Sun Studio. Part blues, part rockabilly, "That's All Right, Mama" took the world by storm; and barely fiver years later, the name Elvis had become synonymous with a sound called Records on McLemore Avenue. A few years later, Al Green recorded "Take Me to the River," "Love and Happiness," "How Do You Mend a Broken Heart?" and a long string of other classic R&B hits under the tutelage of producer Willie Mitchell at Memphis' Hi Records.
Truly, some of the world's most influential performers have been nurtured, polished, and exported from Memphis to the rest of the world. The city is also renowned for the legendary producers, record labels, and studios under whose guidance these extraordinary performers recorded.
Today the city's rich musical heritage still plays an invaluable role in shaping Memphis' identity. And thanks to Graceland, Beale Street, Sun Studio, the Handy Awards, and various music festivals and events like Crossroads, the Beale Street Music Festival, and the Memphis Blues Festival, countless visitors from around the world still travel to Memphis eager to experience the town that spawned so much creativity.
But perhaps more important, the clubs and music halls on Beale Street and throughout the rest of town are still producing some of the nation's most promising talent: jazz great Kirk Whalum, R&B sensation Wendy Moten, and blues guitarist Eric Gales, among a host of others, have recently achieved widespread fame after honing their chops in the clubs of Memphis. In the process, they have helped ensure that the "Memphis Sound" is not a term used only to describe the city's musical past.
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