108 Fun Facts About Memphis

Memphis sits on the banks of which great waterway?

The Mississippi River; Memphis sits on the fourth Chickasaw Bluff above its floodplain and is the largest city proper anywhere along the river.

Memphis was named after an ancient capital of which country?

Egypt's ancient capital Memphis stood on the Nile, and the founders borrowed its name in 1819 for their new town on another great river.

Which future US president was one of the three founders of Memphis in 1819?

Andrew Jackson founded the town on 22 May 1819 with partners John Overton and James Winchester, months after the 1818 Chickasaw Cession opened West Tennessee to settlement.

Which Spanish conquistador is credited with the first European exploration of the Memphis area in 1541?

Hernando de Soto's expedition reached the Mississippi near present-day Memphis in May 1541, the first Europeans known to do so; the Interstate 40 bridge across the river is named for him.

Memphis is the seat of which Tennessee county?

Shelby County is named for Isaac Shelby, the former Kentucky governor who helped negotiate the 1818 purchase of West Tennessee from the Chickasaw; Memphis lost the county seat to Raleigh for decades before winning it back.

Which disease devastated Memphis in a series of 1870s epidemics, killing more than 5,000 in 1878 alone?

Yellow fever killed more than 5,000 of those who stayed in 1878; tens of thousands fled, and the bankrupt city lost its charter in 1879 to become a state taxing district.

Which political machine leader controlled Memphis from the 1910s to about 1950?

E. H. Crump was removed as mayor in 1915 for failing to enforce state prohibition, yet 'Boss' Crump went on steering Memphis politics from behind the scenes until his death in 1954.

Which company is the largest employer in Memphis, with its global air hub at the airport?

FedEx, Memphis's largest employer, runs its World Hub at Memphis International Airport; founder Fred Smith moved operations there in 1973 for the central location and reliably flyable weather.

Where was FedEx (then Federal Express) founded in 1971 before moving to Memphis?

Little Rock, Arkansas: Fred Smith founded Federal Express there in 1971 but began flying from Memphis in 1973, where the airport was central, rarely shut by weather and willing to build for him.

What was the name of Elvis Presley's Memphis mansion?

Graceland was not Elvis's name for it: the Toof family had called their farm that, after a daughter named Grace, long before the house was built in 1939 or Elvis bought it in 1957.

The Whitehaven mansion Elvis bought in 1957 was named after whom?

Stephen C. Toof founded Memphis's oldest commercial printing firm and named the farm for his daughter.

Who moved into the Whitehaven mansion with Elvis after he bought it in 1957?

His parents and grandmother: fans had overrun the street outside the family's previous Memphis house, so Elvis, 22, paid $102,500 for a mansion with land around it.

Who opened Elvis's home to tourists in 1982?

Priscilla Presley, an executor of the estate: upkeep and taxes were costing about half a million dollars a year, so rather than sell the house she opened it for tours in June 1982.

Where was Elvis born, before his family moved to Memphis when he was 13?

Tupelo, Mississippi: Elvis was born in a two-room house there in 1935; his twin brother was stillborn, so he grew up an only child, and the family moved to Memphis in 1948.

Who ran Sun Studio at 706 Union Avenue and discovered Elvis, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis?

Sam Phillips opened the studio in 1950 and at first recorded Black bluesmen such as Howlin' Wolf and Junior Parker at the start of their careers, before the young rockabilly singers who made Sun famous.

Which 1951 recording made at Sun Studio is often called the first rock and roll record?

Rocket 88 was credited to Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats, but the band was really Ike Turner's Kings of Rhythm; its fuzzy guitar is said to come from an amplifier damaged on the drive up to Memphis.

The 1951 record Ike Turner's band cut at Sam Phillips's studio praised which carmaker's new model?

The Oldsmobile Rocket 88, with its new overhead-valve V8, was the car Brenston sang about; he admitted the song borrowed from Jimmy Liggins' 'Cadillac Boogie'.

Which composer, known as the Father of the Blues, wrote 'The Memphis Blues' and 'Beale Street Blues'?

W. C. Handy, a Beale Street bandleader, published 'The Memphis Blues' himself in 1912 and, short of money, sold the rights cheaply; the buyer added lyrics and turned it into a hit.

How did Stax Records get its name?

The sibling partners started out as Satellite Records in 1957 and switched names in 1961.

Who was Stax's biggest star when he died in a 1967 plane crash?

Otis Redding died when his plane went down in Lake Monona, Wisconsin, days after he recorded '(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay'; rushed out as a single, it became a No. 1 hit after his death.

Stax's Memphis studio was set up inside what kind of former building?

A movie theater: Stax rented the old Capitol on East McLemore, and the sloping floor built for cinema seats gave its recordings their distinctive sound; Estelle Axton ran a record shop on the premises.

Which house band, an integrated group, backed most Stax hits?

Booker T. & the M.G.'s became hitmakers by accident: killing time at a session booked for another singer in 1962, they jammed, the label taped it, and the B-side they worked up was 'Green Onions'.

At which Memphis lodging was Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated on April 4, 1968?

The Lorraine was one of only a few Memphis hotels open to Black guests in the segregation era, hosting stars such as Cab Calloway and Count Basie; King was shot on the balcony outside Room 306.

What institution was built around the site of King's assassination?

The National Civil Rights Museum opened in 1991; the motel where King was shot had gone on taking guests for some twenty years, until the late 1980s, before it was converted with his room preserved.

King had come to Memphis in 1968 to support a strike by which city employees?

Sanitation crews walked out after two workers, Echol Cole and Robert Walker, were crushed to death by a malfunctioning garbage truck; their marches carried signs reading 'I Am a Man'.

Which was King's final speech, in Memphis?

'I've Been to the Mountaintop', given at Mason Temple the night before he was killed, almost went unspoken: ill and exhausted, King sent Ralph Abernathy instead, until Abernathy phoned to say the crowd wanted him.

Which NBA team plays at FedExForum in Memphis?

Grizzlies: the team spent its first Memphis seasons in the Pyramid, which fell short of NBA standards though barely ten years old, so the city built FedExForum, opened in 2004.

From which city did Memphis's NBA franchise relocate in 2001?

Vancouver landed an NBA expansion team in 1995 alongside Toronto, but six losing seasons, thin crowds and a weak Canadian dollar followed, and the franchise left for Memphis in 2001.

Which guard, drafted second overall by Memphis in 2019, was the NBA's Rookie of the Year in 2020?

Ja Morant was found by accident: a Murray State assistant, scouting another player at a 2016 camp, went looking for the concession stand and spotted the unranked guard playing three-on-three in a side gym.

What did the Memphis Pyramid reopen as in 2015?

A Bass Pro Shops store: founder Johnny Morris says he vowed, while fishing beside the empty arena in 2005, to build there if his party landed a 30-pound catfish, and a friend duly hooked one.

What are the famous residents of the Peabody Hotel that march to the lobby fountain every day?

The tradition began in the 1930s when the manager left live decoy ducks in the fountain after a hunting trip.

What title was given to the Peabody bellman who trained the ducks to march from 1940 to 1991?

Edward Pembroke, a former circus animal trainer, became the first Duckmaster in 1940 and held the title until 1991; the march is set to Sousa's 'King Cotton'.

Memphis-style barbecue is mostly made with which meat?

Pork, usually ribs and shoulder: the Rendezvous, a rib house in a downtown alley, began in 1948 as a basement snack bar, and Charlie Vergos only later turned to ribs.

Which major label bought Elvis's contract from Sun in late 1955?

RCA Victor bought out the Sun contract after eighteen months of regional hits; within a year Elvis was on network television, making Hollywood films and famous around the world.

Which grocery chain, credited as the first with self-service shopping, opened its first store in Memphis in 1916?

Piggly Wiggly made Clarence Saunders rich by letting shoppers pick goods off the shelves themselves, but he lost the chain in 1923 after a failed attempt to corner its stock on Wall Street.

Which entertainer founded St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis in 1962?

Danny Thomas opened St. Jude in February 1962 in fulfilment of a vow to St. Jude Thaddeus, patron saint of hopeless causes; it was the South's first fully integrated children's hospital.

Which pop star was born in Memphis on 31 January 1981?

Justin Timberlake grew up singing in a Baptist church choir and at 12 joined The All New Mickey Mouse Club, whose young cast also included Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera.

Which soul singer was born in Memphis in 1942 but grew up in Detroit?

Aretha Franklin was two when her father, the Baptist minister C. L. Franklin, took the family from Memphis to Buffalo and soon on to Detroit, where she first sang in his church.

What is the nickname of the University of Memphis sports teams?

The Memphis Tigers' men's basketball team has reached three Final Fours (1973, 1985 and 2008), though the later two appearances were vacated by the NCAA.

Which former Memphis college star and NBA All-Star became the university's head basketball coach?

Penny Hardaway, while still a Memphis State player, was on the squad of college stars that beat the 1992 Dream Team 62-54 in a practice scrimmage; he came back to coach his old school in 2018.

Which coach led Memphis to the 2008 national final before leaving for Kentucky?

John Calipari's 2008 team won 38 games before losing the final 75-68 to Kansas, but the NCAA later vacated the whole season, so the record book now shows it as 0-1.

By what nickname was the Pyramid Arena, home of Memphis college basketball from 1991, known?

The Tomb of Doom was reportedly the players' name for the Pyramid, an arena with near-vertical stands; it lost both its basketball tenants to a new building in 2004.

Which annual Memphis festival salutes a different foreign country each year and runs a world championship barbecue contest?

Memphis in May began in 1977 with a salute to Japan; its barbecue contest was added a year later, starting with only about two dozen teams.

Memphis's June party week, with its secretly chosen King and Queen, was founded in 1931 under what name?

The Cotton Carnival began in the depths of the Depression as a way to promote cotton, the region's biggest industry; the modern Carnival still salutes a local industry each year.

Why was Elvis's body moved to his home weeks after his 1977 funeral?

A plot to steal it: police arrested several men near the cemetery in late August 1977 over a suspected scheme to hold the body for ransom, and that autumn Elvis and his mother were reburied in the grounds of his mansion.

What nickname do Memphians give the I-40 crossing to Arkansas because of its double-arch shape?

The M Bridge, whose two steel arches trace the letter, was shut at once in May 2021 when an inspector found a cracked beam and phoned 911; river traffic beneath it was stopped too.

Mud Island park is known for a walking trail featuring what?

A scale model of the Mississippi River: laid out along the park's River Walk, it lets visitors stroll the river's course down to the Gulf of Mexico in a few minutes.

Which 2005 film about a Memphis pimp turned rapper won Three 6 Mafia an Oscar for Best Original Song?

Hustle & Flow, written and directed by Craig Brewer, was made for just $2.8 million and took in more than eight times that at the box office.

Which bank holding company, founded in 1864, is headquartered in Memphis?

First Horizon, founded as the First National Bank of Memphis in 1864 and long known as First Tennessee, keeps its headquarters downtown and is among the largest banks based in Tennessee.

The Memphis metropolitan area spills out of Tennessee into which two neighbouring states?

Arkansas and Mississippi: West Memphis, despite its name, sits across the river in Arkansas, and suburbs such as Southaven lie just over the state line in Mississippi.

Tom Lee Park honours which 1925 river feat?

Rescuing shipwreck survivors: Tom Lee, who could not swim, pulled 32 people from the river when the steamer M.E. Norman capsized, running them to shore in his small motorboat trip after trip.

Which of these singers did NOT grow up in the Memphis area?

Dolly Parton is from Sevier County in East Tennessee; Justin Timberlake, MGMT's Andrew VanWyngarden and Julien Baker all grew up around Memphis.

Under what name did Jim Stewart found the label that became Stax in 1957?

Satellite lasted until 1961, when its first national hit drew a legal threat from another label of the same name, so Jim Stewart and his sister Estelle Axton joined the first letters of their surnames to make Stax.

What did Estelle Axton put up to raise the $2,500 she invested in her brother's fledgling record label?

Her family home: Axton mortgaged the house to buy in as her brother's partner, and the $2,500 paid for the Ampex tape recorder that let the young label make its own records.

Which record label, sold to Warner in 1967, turned out to own the master recordings of the Stax hits it distributed?

Atlantic's 1965 distribution contract held a clause giving it the masters, which Jim Stewart is said to have signed without reading; he learned of it only after the sale, and Stax lost its early catalogue.

Which civil rights leader led the 1972 Wattstax crowd in reciting 'I Am Somebody'?

Jesse Jackson recited the call-and-response poem with the crowd; Stax staged the show at the Los Angeles Coliseum to mark seven years since the Watts riots, which gave the concert its name.

Which animals did the Memphis Zoo host from 2003 to 2023, rare for a US zoo?

Giant pandas Ya Ya and Le Le arrived on loan from China in 2003; Le Le died in February 2023, shortly before the loan ran out, and Ya Ya was flown home alone that spring.

Which journalist co-owned the Memphis newspaper Free Speech, whose office a mob wrecked in 1892 after her anti-lynching editorials?

Ida B. Wells took up the cause after a mob killed her friend Thomas Moss and two fellow Black grocers in March 1892; her press was destroyed while she was away, and she never returned to Memphis, carrying the campaign north.

Which hotel chain did Memphis builder Kemmons Wilson found after a disappointing family road trip?

Holiday Inn opened its first location in Memphis in 1952. Wilson's architect coined the name as a joke, borrowing it from a 1942 musical film.

In which Tom Hanks film is the hero a troubleshooter for a Memphis-based delivery company?

Cast Away gives Chuck Noland a home and a hero's welcome in Memphis. His employer's real-life founder plays himself in the homecoming scene.

Which Oscar-winning actor, the narrator of March of the Penguins, was born in Memphis in 1937?

Morgan Freeman was born in Memphis and started acting in school plays as a boy. His Academy Award came in 2005, for Best Supporting Actor.

Which Memphis-born actress won an Oscar for playing obsessed fan Annie Wilkes in Misery?

Kathy Bates was born in Memphis in 1948, the youngest of three daughters. Her Annie Wilkes ranks 17th on the American Film Institute's list of screen villains.

Which film stars Sandra Bullock as a Memphis mother who takes in future NFL lineman Michael Oher?

The Blind Side won Bullock the Academy Award for Best Actress. Country singer Tim McGraw plays her husband, Sean.

Which escaped convict pleaded guilty in 1969 to assassinating Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis?

James Earl Ray was arrested at London's Heathrow Airport two months after the shooting. He spent the rest of his life trying, without success, to withdraw the plea.

Which of these is a long-standing nickname for Memphis?

Bluff City refers to the ridge Memphis stands on, well above the floodplain. People had settled that spot for thousands of years before the town was laid out.

Memphis-style ribs served without sauce are coated in what before cooking?

A spice rub of salt and seasonings goes on before the ribs reach the pit. 'Wet' ribs, the other Memphis style, are brushed with sauce before, during and after cooking.

Which heavyweight champion knocked out Mike Tyson in the eighth round at the Memphis Pyramid?

Lennox Lewis kept his titles in a fight Memphis landed after Nevada refused Tyson a licence. It was then the highest-grossing pay-per-view event ever.

Which city, east of Memphis on Interstate 40, passed it in 2017 as Tennessee's most populous?

Nashville took the top spot in 2017 census estimates. Its total counts nearly all of Davidson County, which merged with the city government in 1963.

The Memphis Belle, named for its pilot's sweetheart in the city, was which type of World War II bomber?

A Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, the Memphis Belle was among the first heavy bombers to finish 25 combat missions. From 1949 it stood on display in Memphis for decades.

Which Memphis-based auto parts retailer had to drop its original name after Radio Shack sued?

AutoZone began in 1979 as Auto Shack, the car parts arm of a Memphis wholesale grocer. Radio Shack lost the first round in court, won on appeal, and the new name followed in 1987.

Which upriver city's Major League Baseball club has kept its Triple-A affiliate in Memphis since 1998?

St. Louis lends its Cardinals nickname to the Memphis Redbirds, whose mascot is a cardinal named Rockey. The team moved into a new downtown ballpark in 2000.

Which John Grisham thriller follows a young Harvard law graduate lured to Memphis by a job too good to be true?

The Firm became a 1993 film shot largely in Memphis, with Tom Cruise as Mitch McDeere. One chase scene was filmed on the monorail to Mud Island.

Which Moonlighting star was crowned Miss Teenage Memphis in 1966 before finding fame as a model?

Cybill Shepherd won the title as an East High School student and took the congeniality award at the national pageant. Her film debut came in The Last Picture Show.

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis is named for the Catholic patron saint of what?

Lost causes and desperate cases belong to St. Jude Thaddeus. The hospital's founder had prayed to him as a struggling entertainer, vowing to build the saint a shrine.

Memphis sits in which corner of Tennessee, at the western end of Interstate 40's run across the state?

Southwest Tennessee is where Memphis sits, hard against the state's western edge. The site was the westernmost point of Tennessee when it joined the Union in 1796.

Which college football postseason game, born in Philadelphia in 1959, has called Memphis home since 1965?

The Liberty Bowl spent five years in Philadelphia and one indoors in New Jersey, the first major bowl played under a roof. Memphis has hosted it ever since.

Which Memphis wrestling star slapped comedian Andy Kaufman on David Letterman's show in 1982?

Jerry Lawler had already sent Kaufman to the hospital with two piledrivers in a Memphis ring that April. He later played himself in the Jim Carrey film Man on the Moon.

Which Spanish center was named NBA Defensive Player of the Year in 2013 while playing in Memphis?

Marc Gasol was the first European to win the award. Memphis had acquired his draft rights in the 2008 trade that sent his older brother Pau to the Lakers.

Which Native American nation ceded the land that became Memphis in an 1818 treaty with the United States?

The Chickasaw gave up their territory in West Tennessee in a treaty signed in October 1818. Memphis was founded less than five months after the takeover.

Memphis lies near which seismic zone, whose 1811–12 earthquakes created Reelfoot Lake in northwest Tennessee?

New Madrid is the Missouri river town that gives the zone its name. The future site of Memphis was shaken at level IX on the Mercalli intensity scale.

Which overloaded steamboat exploded just north of Memphis in April 1865, in America's worst maritime disaster?

Sultana was built for 376 passengers but carried more than 2,000, many of them freed Union prisoners of war. Survivors drifted past the Memphis waterfront calling for help.

Which Confederate general's 1864 dawn raid on occupied Memphis sent a Union general fleeing in his nightshirt?

Nathan Bedford Forrest struck at 4 a.m., his cavalry posing as a Union patrol in thick fog. The raid was never meant to hold Memphis, which had 6,000 Federal troops.

Which future NBA MVP was the freshman point guard when Memphis reached the 2008 national title game?

Derrick Rose played a single college season before the Chicago Bulls drafted him first overall. The NCAA later vacated that entire Memphis season.

Which Prohibition-era gangster from Memphis was captured in the city by federal agents in September 1933?

Machine Gun Kelly, born George Kelly Barnes, was traced to Memphis after the kidnapping of an oil tycoon. He died at Leavenworth on his 59th birthday.

Which Marine veteran of Vietnam used a $4 million inheritance to found the delivery giant based in Memphis?

Fred Smith went to school in Memphis and co-founded a recording studio there as a teenager. He launched his express company in June 1971 and ran it for half a century.

Which Memphis mansion of Georgia marble, begun by a grocery tycoon who went bankrupt, became a museum?

The Pink Palace was begun by Clarence Saunders, who lost it unfinished to his creditors after a failed attempt to corner his own company's stock. It opened as the city's museum in 1930.

Which retailer built the vast 1927 Memphis store and catalog plant that reopened as Crosstown Concourse?

Sears shut the building in 1993, and it stayed closed until a renovation finished in 2017. It now mixes apartments, offices, restaurants and a charter high school.

Which Midtown Memphis landmark did a 1971 Supreme Court ruling save from the planned path of Interstate 40?

Overton Park won when the justices sided with a citizens' group against the highway planners. Its grounds hold an old-growth forest and the city's zoo.

Which actor earned an Oscar nomination for playing Elvis Presley in Baz Luhrmann's 2022 film about the Memphis singer?

Austin Butler earned one of the film's eight Academy Award nominations. Its story picks Presley up as a boy newly arrived in Memphis and mocked for loving Black music.

Which Hall of Fame pass rusher, nicknamed the Minister of Defense, began his pro career with the Memphis Showboats?

Reggie White had 23.5 sacks in two seasons with the Showboats before the USFL collapsed. He signed with Memphis to turn pro in the state where he had played in college.

Which liberal arts school moved from Clarksville to Memphis in 1925 and built a Collegiate Gothic campus?

Rhodes College grew out of a boys' academy founded near Clarksville in the 1830s. Its old campus there now forms part of a state university.

Which Memphis businessman, the South's first Black millionaire, bought the first bond after the city went bankrupt?

Robert Church paid $1,000 for that bond when Memphis had been reduced to a taxing district. His daughter Mary Church Terrell was among the first Black American women to earn a college degree.

Which Memphis neighborhood, laid out in the 1890s on a former plantation, was built for Black homebuyers?

Orange Mound began in 1890, when a developer sold lots there for under $100 each. By tradition the name comes from mock-orange shrubs on the old homeplace.

From which Memphis high school did Elvis Presley graduate in 1953, a year before his first record?

Humes was a high school in Presley's day. In his final year he sang in its annual student show, startling classmates who had never heard him.

Who became the first Black candidate elected mayor of Memphis in 1991, winning by just 146 votes?

Willie Herenton had already been the first Black superintendent of Memphis City Schools. He unseated Richard Hackett and was elected to five consecutive terms.

Which Memphis railroad bridge, first crossed by a train in 1916, now carries the Big River Crossing walkway?

Harahan is the bridge's name, and its old roadway reopened to walkers and cyclists in 2016. Cars had used those outer lanes from 1917 until a new road bridge opened in 1949.

Which relocated NFL team played its 1997 home games in Memphis before becoming the Tennessee Titans?

The Oilers had just left Houston and commuted to Memphis on game days while a permanent stadium was built. Their crowds were among the NFL's smallest since the 1950s.

Which numbered road, running south from Memphis through the Delta, is known as the Blues Highway?

Route 61 earned the nickname by running through Delta country, an important source of blues music. Bob Dylan named an album after the road.

Which nickname was given to the impromptu 1956 Sun jam featuring Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis?

Million Dollar Quartet was the headline a Memphis newspaper put on its story about the session. The four had gathered by chance, and most of what they sang was gospel.

Which Stax songwriter turned solo performer won an Oscar for the theme from Shaft?

Isaac Hayes won Best Original Song in 1972 for the theme. He had started at the Memphis label in the early 1960s as a session musician, then wrote hits with David Porter.

Which soul singer recorded Let's Stay Together with Memphis producer Willie Mitchell before becoming a pastor?

Al Green took the song to number one on the Billboard Hot 100. In 1976 he founded his own Memphis congregation, the Full Gospel Tabernacle.

Which blues guitarist got his stage name as a disc jockey on Memphis radio station WDIA?

B.B. King was known on air as the 'Blues Boy', a nickname later cut down to two letters. He had first won a ten-minute spot on the station as a singer.

Which Memphis hip-hop group, formed by DJ Paul and Juicy J, won an Academy Award for Best Original Song?

Three 6 Mafia came together in 1991, after one founder sought out the other for help making beats. Both had been DJing around Memphis since their early teens.

Which Arthur Crudup blues number became Elvis Presley's first single for Sun in July 1954?

That's All Right caught the producer's ear when Presley's trio played it between takes on July 5, 1954. It was released two weeks later, backed with Blue Moon of Kentucky.

Which singer-songwriter won the Best New Artist Grammy in 1992 on the strength of his hit Walking in Memphis?

Marc Cohn called the song entirely autobiographical, drawn from a 1985 trip he took to shake off writer's block. It reached number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Which duo, nicknamed Double Dynamite, recorded Soul Man and Hold On, I'm Comin' at Stax in Memphis?

Sam & Dave cut their Stax records between 1965 and 1968, a run of ten consecutive top-20 R&B singles. The Blues Brothers later had their biggest hit with a cover of Soul Man.

Which Memphis band, featuring former Box Tops singer Alex Chilton, called its 1972 debut album #1 Record?

Big Star won rave reviews for the album, but poor marketing and distribution sank its sales. R.E.M. and others later named the band as an influence.

Which singer, acclaimed for his version of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, drowned in Memphis in 1997?

Jeff Buckley had moved to Memphis that February to resume work on his second album. He went swimming in the Wolf River while waiting for his band to arrive from New York.