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Interesting Facts
- The King may be dead, but his spirit lingers throughout Memphis. Elvis Presley absorbed the classic sounds of R&B along Beale Street as a teen and launched his music career in 1954 with the city's Sun Records. Presley died in 1977 at his 14-acre estate, Graceland. It ranks behind only the White House as the most visited home in the U.S.
- Elvis may have brought the world rock-and-roll, but people have been singing the blues along historic Beale Street for almost a century. Blues – derived from spirituals, the field songs of slaves and old African music – has thrived in this once-segregated neighborhood since local bandleader W.C. Handy penned the first blues song.
- When Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto reached the bluffs above the Mississippi River in 1541, he discovered there was already a thriving civilization in what was later to become Memphis. For centuries, the Chickasaw Indians had inhabited the area in well-designed cities. You can look into the past with a trip to nearby Chucalissa Village.
- Cotton and express mail are the commercial mainstays of this city. Federal Express was founded here in 1972 and has turned the city's airport into the busiest air cargo port in the world. Memphis also has been the center of the cotton-trading industry since the 1850s and today remains a leader in the world cotton market.
- The other King. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in April, 1968, while visiting Memphis in support of striking workers. The motel has been turned into the National Civil Rights Museum, tracing the long struggle for equality in America and King's legacy.
- The Hunt-Phelan Home ranks among the city's oldest and most historic homes and tells the story of the South from the days before the Civil War through Reconstruction. This antebellum home was built by slaves, was the headquarters for General Ulysses S. Grant and his Union army, and served as a school where newly freed slaves were educated.
- Shopping for that hard-to-buy-for person? Try A. Schwab. This dry goods store opened in 1876 and is the only remaining original business on Beale Street. A one-of-a-kind place to shop, you can buy such products as voodoo potions and spell removers, white cotton petticoats, straw hats, oversized overalls and 3-D pictures of Jesus.
- This is nothing to quack about. Memphis' Peabody is a world-class hotel on the order of New York's Plaza, but with one little quirk. Every day since the 1930s, a group of ducks has been escorted from their rooftop home, down a red carpet, to the lobby's marble fountain at 11am, then whisked back up promptly at 5pm.
- The Memphis skyline stands out against the Mississippi River thanks in part to a stunning bit of architecture that pays tribute to the city's Egyptian namesake. The Pyramid, a 32-story stainless steel structure, was initially built as a sports and entertainment complex. It's taller than the Statue of Liberty or the Taj Mahal and seats 22,500 people.
- World War II's most famous airplane is the Memphis Belle, a B-17 bomber that was the first aircraft to complete 25 missions against Nazi targets without a casualty. The plane was named for its pilot's wartime Memphis sweetheart.
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