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Containing 13,467 acres, Meeman-Shelby Forest State Park near Memphis is the most visited state park in Tennessee. Initially known as Shelby Forest State Park, it began as a New Deal recreation demonstration area of the National Park Service during the…

Influential mid-twentieth-century journalist and newspaper editor Edward J. Meeman was born in Evansville, Indiana, to German-born, Catholic, working-class parents. His father was a cigar maker and a local union official. Meeman received his education in Evansville public schools, graduating from…

Meharry Medical College in Nashville originated in 1876 as the medical division of Central Tennessee College, an institution established by the Freedman's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The founding motivation was to train aspiring caregivers to serve not…

Created in 1836 from Rhea County, Meigs County is named for Return Jonathan Meigs (1740-1823), a colonel in the American Revolutionary War and later an Indian agent from 1801 until his death in 1823. The county encompasses 195 square miles…

A key Cherokee agent in southeast Tennessee, Return Jonathan Meigs arrived in Tennessee in May 1801 to fill the combined position of agent to the Cherokee Nation and military agent for the United States War Department. Colonel Meigs, who was…

Since the late 1700s observers have pondered the who, what, why, and where of the people in Tennessee they called Melungeons. In earlier American eras that focused on racial pedigrees, any group that did not fit into easy identification as…

The Fourth Chickasaw Bluff, which rises high above the Mississippi River even at flood stage, has long presented a logical place for settlement. Though they had departed prior to Hernando de Soto's expedition through the area in the 1540s, Native…

The Memphis and Charleston (M&C) Railroad was the last link in a chain of early railroads connecting the Atlantic Coast to the Mississippi River. Its route from Memphis to Chattanooga across Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama is still an important rail…

Founded as Brooks Memorial Art Gallery in 1916, the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art was the first art museum in Memphis. Initial efforts to build a municipal art museum in Memphis were based upon a design for an arts and…

The Memphis College of Art is the only independent college in the South dually accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) and the National Association of Schools of Art and Design. It opened on October 5, 1936,…

Although the title Commercial Appeal dates from 1894, the roots of this newspaper reach back to the early decades of Memphis's history. One ancestor, the Weekly (later Daily) Appeal, began in 1841 under Henry Van Pelt. A strongly sectional and…

Following the organization of cotton exchanges in New York (1870) and New Orleans (1871), Memphis cotton buyers pushed for an exchange in Memphis. Initial attempts to organize the institution failed, though, because most of the cotton factors feared that the…

Founded in 1888 by the Reverend Taylor Nightingale, the Memphis Free Speech was published on the grounds of Nightingale's church, the First (Beale Street) Baptist Church. The name of the paper changed to Free Speech and Headlight when J. L.…

Memphis has long celebrated a rich musical and cultural heritage. Its rhythm-n-blues, soul, and rock-n-roll foundations are exemplified by Beale Street, Stax Records, and Graceland, respectively, while jazz and gospel have also historically called Memphis home. In the 1940s and…

Founded in 1917 and edited by owner and publisher Jake Cohen (1877-1945), this weekly newspaper served as the official organ of the Memphis Trades and Labor Council, an American Federation of Labor affiliate. Prior to his journalistic efforts, the Russian-born…

The musical legacy of the Bluff City is exciting, diverse, and extremely significant in the history of American culture. Today Memphis's best known landmarks are two places--Beale Street and Graceland--intimately associated with the city's place in American music history, especially…

Aviation at this facility, the largest inland naval base in the world, dates back to World War I, when the U.S. Army created Park Field as a training ground for air and ground crews. The navy's presence began in 1942…

Associated with the Progressive era and City Beautiful Movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the development of the Memphis Park and Parkway System laid the foundation for municipal park systems across Tennessee. The Memphis system also represented…

The history of the Memphis Press-Scimitar is shorter, though no less convoluted, than that of its main rival, the Commercial Appeal. In 1880 George P.M. Turner (1839-1900), owner-editor of papers in Mississippi and Arkansas, leader of Texas troops under Nathan…

The only major league professional basketball team ever based in Tennessee during the twentieth century was the Memphis franchise of the American Basketball Association (ABA). Known by different names from 1970 to 1975 and playing primarily at the Mid-South Coliseum…