History of Memphis, Tennessee
It rapidly developed as a major trading center for cotton cultivated at the region's large plantations and dependent on the work of enslaved African Americans.
They inhabited the region of modern-day Tipton, Lauderdale and Shelby counties during the time of first contact with Europeans, at the arrival of the de Soto Expedition.
[9] When Europeans first encountered them, the Chickasaw were living in villages in what is now Mississippi, with a smaller number in the area of Savannah Town, South Carolina.
Twentieth-century scholar Patricia Galloway says that the Chickasaw may have been migrants to the area from the west and may not have been descendants of the pre-historic Mississippian culture.
[11][12] Despite such early outposts, the land comprising present-day Memphis remained in a largely unorganized territory throughout most of the 18th century in terms of European settlement.
Memphis was a departure point on the Mississippi River for Native Americans removed in the 1830s from their historic lands to Indian Territory on the Trail of Tears.
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.
In January 1863 Charles Dana, a special investigator for the Federal War Department, reported from Memphis that a "mania" for illicit cotton had "corrupted and demoralized" Union Army officers.
Hill became immensely wealthy with interests in wholesale groceries, railroads, steel and banking, as well as cotton, and was known to his contemporaries as "the merchant prince of Memphis".
It was reported that such terror gripped the town in August 1878 that fleeing families "left their houses with the doors wide open and silver standing on the sideboards".
[32] Robert R. Church, Sr., a freedman who became known later as the South's first African-American millionaire (although his total wealth is believed to reach "only" $700,000), was the first citizen to buy a $1,000 bond to pay off the debt and help restore the city's charter.
State law and local custom imposed a system of Jim Crow based on white supremacy, and in the late 1890s the police force was closed against blacks.
[39] Clarence Saunders, a Memphis inventor and entrepreneur, opened a self-service grocery store in 1916 and founded the first supermarket chain, Piggly Wiggly.
[40] Saunders, who became very wealthy from these ventures, lost his fortune on Wall Street and was forced to sell his partly completed Memphis mansion, dubbed the Pink Palace.
Second he included the modernizers, the business-oriented progressives who were most concerned with upgrading the infrastructure in terms of the waterfront, parks, highways and skyscrapers, as well as a moderately good school system.
In turn the city received ample relief programs – which provided jobs for the unemployed, as selected by local machine lieutenants.
The commissioners developed an extensive network of parks and public works as part of the national City Beautiful movement, but did not encourage heavy industry, which might have provided substantial employment for the white working-class population.
Many renowned musicians grew up in and around Memphis and moved to Chicago and other areas from the Mississippi Delta, carrying their music with them to influence other cities and listeners over radio airwaves.
[55] These included such musical greats as Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Muddy Waters, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Robert Johnson, W. C. Handy, B.B.
King, Howlin' Wolf, Isaac Hayes, Booker T. Jones, Eric Gales, Al Green, Alex Chilton, Justin Timberlake, Three 6 Mafia, the Sylvers, Jay Reatard, Zach Myers, and many others.
The southern boundary of the city was an irregular line starting on the Mississippi opposite President's Island, about two miles (3 km) north of Nonconnah Creek.
[58] During the 1960s, the city was a center of activity during the Civil Rights Movement, as its large African-American population had been affected by state segregation practices and disenfranchisement in the early 20th century.
He stayed at the Lorraine Motel in the city, where he was assassinated by a sniper on April 4, 1968, the day after giving his prophetic "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech at the Mason Temple.
The governor ordered Tennessee National Guardsmen into the city within hours, where small, roving bands of rioters continued to be active.
FedEx Corporation (originally, Federal Express) was founded in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1971, but moved its operations to Memphis in 1973 to take advantage of its more extensive airport facilities.
On December 23, 1988, a tanker truck hauling liquefied propane crashed at the I-40/I-240 interchange in Midtown and exploded, starting multiple vehicle and structural fires.
Stax recordings and artists included Rufus and Carla Thomas, Sam and Dave, Otis Redding, William Bell, The Bar-Kays and their house band, Booker T. & the MG's.
King, Howlin' Wolf, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Roy Orbison were all recorded there in its early years.
WHER, the first all-female station ("All-Girl Radio"), was founded in 1955 by the recording studio owner Sam Phillips and Holiday Inn founder Kemmons Wilson.
Beale Street and the Lorraine Motel (now preserved and operating as the National Civil Rights Museum, where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968) are located in the Downtown area.
