The New International Encyclopædia/Memphis (Tennessee)

MEMPHIS. The largest city of Tennessee and the county-seat of Shelby County, situated on the Mississippi River, 454 miles below Saint Louis and 818 miles above New Orleans (Map: Tennessee, B 5). It is at the head of navigation for large steamers, and has exceptional railway facilities, being on the line of the Illinois Central; the Saint Louis and San Francisco; the Missouri Pacific; the Louisville and Nashville; the Nashville, Chattanooga and Saint Louis; the Rock Island; the Southern; the Saint Louis Southwestern; the Saint Louis, Memphis and Southwestern; the Kansas City, Memphis and Birmingham; and the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley.

The city rises on the Chickasaw Bluffs, 40 feet above high water; a broad levee overlooks the river, and there are stone-paved wharves. It is laid out with broad, regular, well paved and shaded streets and has handsome residences and substantial business buildings. In the heart of the city is a public park filled with magnificent old trees. In all, there are about 1000 acres of public parks of great natural beauty. Among the notable structures are the United States Custom House, Cotton Exchange, Cossitt Library building, Hospital Medical College, Lyceum Theatre, Grand Opera House, Auditorium, Odd Fellows' building and Masonic Temple, Gayoso Hotel, Scimitar (newspaper) building, Equitable building, and the Porter, Randolph, Lowenstein, Southern Express, Napoleon Hill, and Woman's buildings. There are in Memphis a marine hospital, a large city hospital, and Saint Joseph's Hospital; and its educational institutions include the Christian Brothers' College (Roman Catholic), opened in 1871; the Memphis Hospital Medical College, Le Moyne Normal Institute, and Hannibal Medical College, the last two for colored students; besides several private secondary institutions and the schools of the public school system, in which are enrolled about 11,000 pupils. In addition to the public library and those in connection with the educational institutions, there are Bar and Law, and Odd Fellows' libraries. A steel railroad bridge across the Mississippi, consisting of five spans and nearly 1900 feet in length, was opened in 1892; and the city has two fine race tracks. Five miles distant is a National Cemetery, in which are 14,039 graves, 8822 of unknown dead.

Its facilities for transportation by water and rail have made Memphis one of the most important commercial and manufacturing centres in the South. It is one of the largest cotton markets in the United States, and carries on a large wholesale and jobbing trade in groceries, dry goods, foodstuffs, shoes, hardware, and agricultural implements. Its industrial interests are undergoing remarkable development, the city being noted particularly for its wood-working industries, chiefly of hard wood, and for the manufacture of cottonseed products. There are large cottonseed oil mills, foundries and machine shops, car works, furniture factories, flour and grist mills, saw and planing mills, carriage and wagon shops, clothing factories, saddlery and harness factories, brick and tile plants, confectionery and cracker factories, tobacco and cigar fatories, patent medicine works, cold storage fibre plants for the manufacture of pulp for paper mills, and many other establishments.

Memphis spends annually in maintenance and operation about $1,000,000, the principal items of expenditure being: for the fire department, $127,500; for the police department (including amounts for police courts, jails, reformatories, etc.), $100,000; for the health department (including garbage removal, crematories, etc.), $100,000; for charitable institutions, $100,000; for schools, $80,000; for municipal lighting, $50,000. Population, in 1850, 8841; in 1860, 22,623; in 1870, 40,226; in 1880, 33,592; in 1890, 64,495; in 1900, 102,320, including 5100 persons of foreign birth and 49,900 of negro descent.

On the site of Memphis, forts were built by the French (1698) and by the Spaniards (1794), but no regular settlement was made until 1819, when a small company arrived under the auspices of Andrew Jackson, John Overton, and James Winchester, proprietors of the land in this vicinity. In 1826 the settlement, with a population of 500, was incorporated as a town, and in 1849, South Memphis having been just annexed, a city charter was secured. On June 6, 1862, a Confederate fleet under Commodore Montgomery was defeated near Memphis by a Federal fleet under Commodore Davis, and Memphis was thereafter until the close of the war held by the Federal forces, though in August, 1864, the Confederate General Forrest raided it and carried off several hundred prisoners. In 1879, on account of the city's inability to meet its financial obligations, its charter was revoked, and until 1891, when it was reincorporated, Memphis was merely the ‘Taxing District of Shelby County,’ governed by three commissioners and a board of public works. Yellow fever epidemics occurred in 1855, 1867, 1873, 1878, and 1879, those in 1873 and 1878 being especially disastrous. Since 1880, however, the city has built 210 miles of Waring sewers; and this improvement in the sewerage system, together with the discovery of pure artesian water, has resulted materially in improving the healthfulness of the city. Consult: Keating and Vedder, History of the City of Memphis (Syracuse, N. Y., 1888); Davis, History of the City of Memphis (Memphis, 1873).