Memphis

MEMPHIS

MEMPHIS, the largest city in Tennessee and the chief city on the Mississippi River between St. Louis and New Orleans. In 1819, Memphis was laid out by a trio of town site developers, one of whom was the future president Andrew Jackson. It was named for the ancient Egyptian capital on the Nile River. During the following four decades, it became a leading river port and a center for the cotton trade. Completed in 1857, the Memphis and Charleston Railroad provided a transportation link to the Atlantic Ocean, further enhancing the city's commercial advantages. Occupied by Union forces in 1862, Memphis escaped the destruction suffered by many other southern cities during the Civil War. During the 1870s, however, repeated yellow fever epidemics decimated the local population and retarded the city's development. By 1900, Memphis had recovered and, with a population of

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102,320, ranked as the second-largest city in the former Confederacy.

The Democratic organization of Boss Ed Crump dominated Memphis politics during the first half of the twentieth century. Devoted to low property taxes, Crump was reluctant to invest in the costly public works projects suggested by city planners. Although the city earned no national recognition as a showpiece of urban government, it did win a reputation as a center of blues music. In 1909, the black musician W. C. Handy wrote "Memphis Blues" as a campaign song for Crump, and the city's Beale Street became famous as the birthplace of the blues.

Between 1947 and 1977, Memphis annexed 230 square miles and almost doubled in population, claiming to have 674,000 residents in the latter year. That same year marked the death of the city's most famous resident, Elvis Presley. Presley began his rock and roll career in Memphis, recording with a small local company called Sun Records. In 1982, his home, Graceland, was opened to the public and became a pilgrimage site for more than 600,000 visitors annually; their spending gave a boost to the city's economy. Meanwhile, as the headquarters of Federal Express Corporation, Memphis claimed to be America's distribution center, and the city's airport boasted of being the world's busiest air cargo port. The city also became a major medical center and remained a hub of the cotton trade. Despite its enlarged boundaries, Memphis lost residents to growing suburban areas, and in the 1980s and 1990s, its population was relatively stable. In 2000, it was home to 650,100 people.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Capers, Gerald M., Jr. The Biography of a River Town: Memphis in Its Heroic Age. 2d ed. Memphis: G. M. Capers, 1966.

Tucker, David M. Memphis Since Crump: Bossism, Blacks, and Civic Reformers, 1948–1968. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1980.

Jon C. Teaford

See also Blues ; Rock and Roll ; Tennessee .