History of Memphis, Tennessee
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The area around Memphis, Tennessee was first settled by the Mississippian Culture and then by the Chickasaw Indian tribe. European exploration came years later, with Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto and French explorers led by René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle.[1]
The modern city of Memphis was founded in 1820, the city was named after the ancient capital of Egypt on the Nile River.
In the early 20th century, Memphis grew into the world's largest spot cotton market and the world's largest hardwood lumber market.
During the 1960s the city was at the center of civil rights issues. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968 at the Lorraine Motel.
Many notable blues musicians grew up in and around the Memphis and northern Mississippi area. These included such musical greats as Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, B.B. King, and Howlin' Wolf.[2]
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[edit] Early history
[edit] Indian tribes
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The Memphis area was first settled by the Mississippian Culture, a mound-building Native American culture. Later the territory was settled by the Chickasaw Indian tribe, who originally came from the bank of the Tennessee River just west of Huntsville, Alabama.
[edit] European explorers - 1500s/1600s
European exploration came years later, with Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto believed to have visited what is now the Memphis area as early as the 1540s.
By the 1680s, French explorers led by René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle built Fort Prudhomme in the vicinity, the first European settlement in what would become Memphis, predating English settlements in East Tennessee by more than 70 years.[1]
Despite such early outposts, the land comprising present-day Memphis remained in a largely unorganized territory throughout most of the 18th century, while the boundaries of what would become Tennessee continued to evolve from its parent — the Carolina Colony, later North Carolina and South Carolina.
By 1796, the community was the westernmost point of the newly admitted state of Tennessee.
[edit] 19th century
[edit] Foundation - 1861
Memphis was founded in 1820 by John Overton, James Winchester, and Andrew Jackson and was incorporated as a city in 1826. The city was named after the ancient capital of Egypt on the Nile River. The founders planned for a large city to be built on the site and laid out a plan featuring a regular grid of streets interrupted by four town squares, to be named Exchange, Market, Court, and Auction.[3] Of these, only Court Square remains as a public park in downtown Memphis. The city grew as a center for transporting and marketing the growing volumes of cotton produced in the nearby Mississippi delta in the antebellum era.
The cotton economy of the antebellum South depended on the forced labor of large numbers of African-American slaves, and Memphis became a major slave market. Slaves seeking their freedom turned to the Underground Railroad to escape to the free states of the North, and the Memphis home of Jacob Burkle was a way-station on their route to freedom.
The Gayoso House Hotel was built overlooking the Mississippi River in 1842 and became a Memphis landmark until it burned in 1899. The original Gayoso House was a first class hotel, designed by James H. Dakin, a well-known architect of that era, and was appointed with the latest conveniences, including indoor plumbing with marble tubs, silver faucets and flush toilets. [4]
[edit] Civil War
At the time of the American Civil War, Memphis was already an important regional city because of its river trade and railroad connections, particularly the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, completed in 1857. Tennessee seceded from the Union in June 1861 and Memphis briefly became a Confederate stronghold.
Union forces captured Memphis from the Confederacy in the Battle of Memphis on June 6, 1862, and the city remained under Union control for the duration of the war, except for a dramatic raid conducted by Nathan Bedford Forrest. Memphis became a Union supply base and continued to prosper throughout the war. During that time the Gayoso House was a Union headquarters. According to local legend, General Forrest rode his horse into the lobby seeking to capture a Union general.[5]
[edit] Yellow fever epidemic - 1870s
Extensive yellow fever epidemics in the 1870s (1873, 1878 and 1879) devastated the city.
At that time it was not understood that this fatal disease was carried by a mosquito vector, so public health measures were unsuccessful. So many died or fled the epidemics that in 1879 Memphis lost its city charter and until 1893 Memphis was governed as merely a taxing district.[6]
Eventually improvements in sanitation removed the breeding grounds of the mosquito vector. Then, in 1887, a source of abundant and pure artesian water was found beneath the city. [7] As a result the city again began to prosper. In 1897, Memphis' pyramid-shaped pavilion was a conspicuous part of the Tennessee Centennial exposition.
[edit] 20th century
[edit] Until the 1950s
The Memphis Park and Parkway System including Overton Park and M.L. King Riverside Park was designed as a comprehensive plan by landscape architect George Kessler at the beginning of the 20th Century.[8]
Memphis grew into the world's largest spot cotton market (over 40% of the nation's crop was traded here) and the world's largest hardwood lumber market. Into the 1950s, it was the world's largest mule market.[3]
From the 1910s to the 1950s, Memphis was a hotbed of machine politics under the direction of E. H. "Boss" Crump. During the Crump era, Memphis developed an extensive network of parks and public works as part of the national City Beautiful Movement.
Clarence Saunders, a Memphis inventor and entrepreneur, opened the first self-service grocery store in 1916 and founded the first supermarket chain, Piggly Wiggly. Saunders, who became very wealthy from these ventures, lost his fortune due to stock manipulations by Wall Street "bears", and was forced to sell his partly-completed Memphis mansion, dubbed the Pink Palace. The Pink Palace eventually became the City's historical and natural history museum.
[edit] Post-War Era - 1950s
The first national motel chain, Holiday Inn, was founded in Memphis by Kemmons Wilson in 1952. His first inn was located in Berclair near the city limit on Summer Avenue, then the main highway to Nashville, Tennessee.[9]
[edit] Civil Rights Movement - 1960s
During the 1960s the city was at the center of civil rights issues, notably the location of a sanitation workers' strike in 1968. Martin Luther King, Jr., who had come to the city in support of the striking workers, was assassinated on April 4, 1968 at the Lorraine Motel, the day after giving his prophetic I've Been to the Mountaintop speech at the Mason Temple.
[edit] Recent History
FedEx Corporation (originally, Federal Express) was founded in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1971, but moved to Memphis in 1973 to take advantage of the more extensive airport facilities. Memphis became the major hub of operations for FedEx and as a result the Memphis International Airport became the largest airfreight terminal in the world.
[edit] Cultural history
Memphis is well known for its cultural contributions to the identity of the American south.
[edit] Riverboats
From the earliest days of the steamboat, through the present day, Memphis has been a major center of river transportation. Passenger steamers linked Memphis with river ports up and down the Mississippi, Ohio and Missouri Rivers as late as the 1920s. Tom Lee Park on the Memphis riverfront is named for an African-American riverworker who became a civic hero. Tom Lee could not swim. Nevertheless, he single-handedly rescued thirty-two people from drowning when the steamer M.E. Norman sank in 1925.
Today, Memphis Riverboats offers tourist excursions from the Memphis waterfront on paddlewheel steamers.
[edit] Black music
Beginning in the early 20th century Memphis became famous for the innovative strains of African-American music, including gospel, blues, jazz, soul, and Rhythm and Blues genres, a tradition that continues to this day.
Many notable blues musicians grew up in and around the Memphis and northern Mississippi, and performed there regularly. These included such musical greats as Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, B.B. King, and Howlin' Wolf.
[edit] Firsts in Radio
First black radio station: The first African American-formatted radio station, WDIA, was founded in the city in 1947 by Bert Ferguson and John Pepper, and included a young B. B. King as disc jockey. B. B. King's moniker was derived from his WDIA nickname "Beale Street Blues Boy", a reference to Memphis' Beale Street on which many nightclubs and blues venues were located.
WHER, "All-Girl Radio": The first all-female station, WHER was founded in 1955 by the recording studio owner Sam Phillips and Holiday Inn founder Kemmons Wilson.
[edit] Elvis Presley
The young Elvis Presley frequently listened to gospel and soul music, and many of his early recordings were inspired or written by African-American composers and recording artists in the Mid-South area.[2]
[edit] Culinary history
In addition to a rich musical heritage, Memphis also boasts a long culinary legacy dominated by regional barbecue. Memphis barbecue is rendered distinct by its sole usage of pork (as opposed to beef), focus on rib and shoulder cuts of meat, and multiple locally-owned barbecue restaurants. Celebration of this local culinary tradition reaches its climax each year in May, when the Memphis in May Festival holds its annual World-Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest.
[edit] References
- ^ a b Magness, Perre. Fort Prudhomme and La Salle. Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture.
- ^ a b Guralnick, Peter. "How Did Elvis Get Turned Into a Racist?", New York Times, 2007-08-11, pp. 2.
- ^ a b City of Memphis History of Memphis
- ^ Semmer, Blythe. Gayoso Hotel. Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture.
- ^ See Wikipedia article: Second Battle of Memphis
- ^ Harkins, John E.. Memphis. Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture.
- ^ "The Water Supply of Memphis", New York Times, 1890-04-27.
- ^ Hopkins, John Linn; Oates, Marsha R.. Memphis Park and Parkway System. Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture. Retrieved on 2007-05-28.
- ^ Dye, Robert W. (2005). Shelby County (Images of America). Arcadia Publishing, 128. ISBN 0738541923.
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