Moving East
Crump started annexation and it kept going:
“We are moving east.”
By Joe V Lowry
With deep gratitude to Richard Arwood, Dr. Doug Cupples, Devin Greany, Tricia McMillan Gully, Neil Loftiss, Ann Meeks, William Novarese, Jimmy Ogle, Carol Perel, Jimmy Rout, Anne Swearingen, Mike Vanelli and Dennis Wolf.
Memphis, like many cities, has long pursued annexation to achieve growth. Despite citizens’ objection to higher taxes – even with promised improvements – there was no stopping the city from gobbling up land, no matter what or who had a claim to it.
From the beginning, annexation was unpopular with people in the affected areas.
Among the first to be annexed were Madison Heights and Idlewild in 1899. But it wasn’t until 1908 that proper services were provided — a large feeder water mains and small distribution water mains, sewers and fire protection as far as Cooper Street, the eastern boundary of the annexation area. The citizens in the annexed area had paid for services they didn’t receive.
Small communities such as Hollywood, Buntyn Normal and South Memphis, however, received city services but had not been annexed. Residents assumed they were safe from the city’s annexation goals.
Commercial Appeal, Jan. 14, 1929, Page 9:
At a meeting at Guthrie School, Mayor Watkins Overton met with the Council of Civic Clubs and told them that Memphis was getting ready to annex land. Although he was not specific about the actual boundaries at this meeting, the intent was to annex from the Wolf River on the north to the Nonconnah Creek on the south.
Commercial Appeal, Jan. 16, 1929, Page 4:
The Buntyn Normal Civic Club voted no on annexation. Their club president told Mayor Watkins Overton the community didn’t want to be annexed. The mayor took a deep breath and said, “The man above me wants it.” Mayor Overton decisions were not his own; E.H. Crump made them for him.
Commercial Appeal, Jan. 23, 1929, Page 15:
The push eastward was one of the biggest moves Memphis ever took on. In 1929 Memphis started getting ready to annex more than 20 square miles with more than 50,000 residents. The plan was to annex up to Vollintine on the north, Highland on the east, Parkway on the south and a portion west of Thomas Street south and east of the Wolf River. The area contained 11 lumber-related companies.
As Mayor Overton and City Attorney Walter Chandler were touting the benefits of being part of the city, the presidents of six civic clubs were still opposed. The city still had 6,000 acres of annexed land that still didn’t have sewers or fire hydrants. The civic club presidents feared the same was going to happen to them.
Each civic club had between 350 and 500 members, most of whom were opposed to annexation. The six clubs and their presidents were:
- Buntyn Normal, E.C. Sides
- Northeast, T. H. Graham of the
- Hollywood, A. R. Hagemaster
- Longview Heights (outside primary annexation area ), R. L. Wilson
- South Memphis (outside primary annexation area ), J. R. Bailey
The groups planned to take their cause to the state legislature, but they had not counted on the Crump-backed Shelby delegation, which always voted as Crump instructed.
The mayor talked to the groups about the city zoning ordinances (the county had none), which did not prevent a filing station from being built next to a residential home. He then talked about lower telephone and electrical services, better sewage, and a fire department that would always respond, meaning lower fire insurance rates. No start date for services and no indication of the cost to taxpayers were mentioned.
City Engineer Will Fowler said a bond issue would be needed to pay for sewers for Buntyn-Normal, which would be $14 million Ernest C. Ball, county schools superintendent, said that if the suburb were annexed, all children south of Park would go to Whitehaven schools and those east of Highland would go to Germantown. In short, Memphis was in financial trouble at the time and needed tax revenue.
In March a delegation of annexation opponents went to Nashville hoping to hear the state legislature say that 20 square miles would not be annexed, nor would the city take in 42,000 people and $24 million in property. They did not count on Crump-backed Frank Roxie Rice, Crump’s No. 2 and leader of the Shelby delegation, stopping them. The anticipated bill was never seen.
Commercial Appeal, March 22, 1929, Page 2:
E.C. Sides, Buntyn Normal Civic Club president, accused Mayor Overton of having an “unreliable memory.” He said the citizens of Lenox and Binghamton were allowed to have a vote. “Those communities were incorporated, each with a mayor. Buntyn-Normal was not ”
By Dec. 19, 1929, Memphis had annexed 20 sq. miles, bringing the total to 48.54 sq. miles. After annexation, the population was 242,801.
In the 1930s and 40s, Crump was said to play poker on Friday nights with his lieutenants, and on Saturday, with the wealthiest men in town. During these card games they shared information and he told them what was going to happen in the city.
During the mid-1930s, Crump told these businessmen that the city was moving eastward and to buy up the land. This land had been held and passed down within Black families from the early 1900s. Land that no one else in the county had wanted was now enormously valuable. Those who were in the know would be able to get it, no matter what it took.
The land was in such demand that when the C.M.E Church on Cole Rd. west of White Station burned to the ground, the county would not issue a permit to rebuild.
Poorer neighborhoods annexed and shortchanged
There were four Black neighborhoods in East Memphis in the 1950s. Only one remains. It is located around Wilburn Avenue, which runs east off N. Mendenhall, south of Summer and north of Princeton. The families who lived in these enclaves were the domestics, yard men and those who worked for the wealthy whites at the time.
William Arnold Rd. was built in the early 1950s; 25 families lived in the area.
On Feb. 5, 2020, I had a great conversation with Dr. Vera Walker Hawkins, who had lived on William Arnold as a child, told me that William Arnold was her grandfather.
During the course of my research, I spoke with a long-time church friend of my family’s, Louise Sims Mendenhall Morehouse, who told me that when she was little, Blacks and whites lived in complete harmony. She said the corner of Mendenhall and Poplar included a mix of Black and white businesses, including doctors, dentists, undertakers, and all kinds of shops.
In 1937, Tom Walton, a Black businessman, undertaker and owner of a grocery store at Poplar and Mendenhall, owned a lot of property in the area.
As a growing number of people moved east, they forced the Black property owners, many of whom lived on Cole and Shady Grove roads, to move, sometimes by burning property and threatening the homeowners to vacate their property.
Sanderlin Academy was a Seventh Day Adventist training school for Black youth. It was located at the southwest corner of what is now Sanderlin and White Station Rd.(former site of the Racquet Club) and taught trades that prepared students for jobs. The school included a large two-story living complex that burned in the 1950s. There were several other buildings on the campus at the time. As firefighters left the station at Poplar and Perkins they could see the smoke. The nearest fire hydrant was 1,800 feet away. More than 40 residents were now homeless.
Truse-McKinney and the fight for what was right
The enclave of Black homes had been there since the 1900s. In the early to mid-1940s, as the Black families were driven off their property, they were able to purchase land from Tom Walton in what later became known as the Truse-McKinney subdivision.
In 1953, the Truse-McKinney neighborhood was annexed into the City of Memphis at the same time as the Colonial View area bordered by Mendenhall on the east, Park Avenue on the south, Colonial Road on the west and the Southern Railway track on the north. Colonial View was across Mendenhall from Truse-McKinney. One neighborhood — Colonial View — got curbs, gutters, the minimum number of fire hydrants and several large storm drainage ditches that led to the Cherry Bayou and the Black Bayou. Truse-McKinney got none of that. Its residents were treated like second class citizens.
In later years when Clark Tower and 5050 Poplar were built, the stormwater runoff flowed south under the railroad tracks and completely flooded the entire Truse-McKinney subdivision. It was commonplace for 12 inches of water to run through the backyards, said long-time area resident Sophia Coger Atkins.
Why did Memphis consider this section different from Colonial View right across the street? Mr. Crump was still alive at the time of annexation, and this would have been exactly what he would want. The segregationist attitude was common to the city of Memphis at the time. (Mr. Crump died in October 1954.)
“Separate but equal,” according to the Cornell school of Law, “refers to the infamously racist decision by the U.S. Supreme court in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) that allowed the use of segregation laws by state and local governments. The phrase separate but equal came from part of the court’s decision that argued separate rail cars for whites and African Americans were equal, at least as required by the Equal Protection Clause.”
Commercial Appeal, June 12, 1985, Page 13. By Norma J. Martin:
Two well-known real estate developers sought to convert individual residential corners in the low-income community of Truse-McKinney to commercial and took their case to the Land Use Control Board. About 40 members of the Sea Isle Homeowners Association attended the meeting. Because of the city’s lack of services to the area (including 6-inch water mains that could not carry the required fire flow for commercial structures and streets not wide enough to handle traffic) improvements would be required. The request was turned down by the Land Use Control Board. Noting the absence of appropriate water, sewers and roads, board member Ben Whitten said, ”It’s absolutely shameful the way these residents have been treated.“
Civil Rights Attorney Richard Fields takes the case in 1985
Commercial Appeal June 14, 1985:
Peggy McCollough, reported in Neglect of Pocket Area Seems Destined to Linger, “The Truse-McKinney community in East Memphis is a poor Black enclave in the middle of the lap of luxury.” The community started about 1942 after they had been run off their property. Cassell Ware, a long-time resident, said, “They (developers) are stepping in and kicking us out one by one. Some people are taking $30,000. For $30,000, you can’t even buy back into a ghetto. Most people here don’t have anywhere to go, and most are elderly.” He said the subdivision had run to nothing because the city hadn’t done anything. “They say they don’t have the money,” said Public Works Director Maynard Stiles. “There is no money available for improvements.”
Commercial Appeal, March 19, 1986, Page 15, Section B:
Reporter Peggy McCollough talked with Dr. Charles Crawford, director of history research at the University of Memphis. Crawford said, “White Station was named after Col. Eppy White, a plantation owner who was a leader in Shelby County during the 1820s and 1830s.” Most of White Station was populated and owned by Blacks during the early 1900s, Crawford said whites also owned a lot of property.” Chastene Thompson, retired former school principal whose family lived in the area for 100 years, said, “The largest Black landowner was Tom Walton. He owned the Truse- McKinney area. When the whites came in, they set his store on fire July 10, 1930. Six businesses and two residences at Poplar and Mendenhall burned. Pumper 17 and Ladder Truck 4, along with the Fire Patrol and Fire Chief John T. Moore responded. There was no water even close. The loss totaled $50,000 and was ruled arson.
Fifty-five Black property owners who owned 75% of the land in this poor neighborhood near Poplar and Mendenhall were in the struggle of their lives. A large corporation wanted their land. Shelby County opted to favor the corporation rather than providing for its citizens, a pattern unchanged from 1910, when segregationist Crump had come to power.
Dr. Charles Crawford, history professor at the University of Memphis, said then that Blacks could acquire land that no one wanted. No one objected to it. Dr. Crawford likened the Truse- McKinney area situation to what the white people did to the Tennessee Cherokee Indians in sending them to the wilderness in Oklahoma they later discovered that there was oil on it.
Tampa, Tribune, May 11, 1986, Page 139, story by Mike Berry, UPI:
Residents try to sell entire neighborhood
Richard Fields, a civil rights attorney, with assistance from Real estate Attorney Robert Dempsy[1], is putting together a plan for an entire neighborhood to be sold as one package.
Commercial Appeal, July 20,1997, Pages 1 and 12, Section A:
Juanita Clarke of Mt. Vernon Reality in Vienna, Va., said people in the area were willing to sell but taking what some of the local real estate agents were offering was not enough to relocate to another location. She also said that half-acre lots didn’t sell, but two- to 10-acre lots do sell and sell well for a fair price.
Fields, who handled the case pro bono, believed it was only a matter of time before developers moved in to try to buy out the residents, picking them off one by one. Most of the families agreed to go along with the project Fields outlined and admitted the residents’ trust was not won easily.
Osceola Crawford lived in the house her family had built 50 years before. “We worked hard for this property, and I don’t plan to give it away,” she said. Some residents were opposed to the deal. Fields said he was not going to put pressure on any of them.
“At one time the City of Memphis wanted to put the dog pound right in the middle of the neighborhood,” said Orangella Coger Harris, a lifelong resident of the area. She also said, “they were always going to the City Council to protest rezoning.”
The neighbors received aggressive help from Colonial Acres Homeowners Association president Anne Whalen Schaefer and equally aggressive Sea Isle Homeowners Association President Mary Rose McCormick. Civil Rights Attorney Fields and Real Estate Attorney Robert Dempsey, who also served pro bono, helped the existing property owners band together to sell their 90 lots as one 20-acre tract.
Commercial Appeal, August 1, 1997, By Laura Campbell:
Truse- McKinney Sale Hits Delay; Folks Must Move Before Getting the $9 Million
Robert Dempsey, still working on the 12-year-old case, said it had always been in the contract with Home Depot that everyone would be out of the area before any money was handed out to the 350 homeowners or their heirs. Later in the day Richard Fields learned that he could get a 90-day bridge loan to help make the transfer to new homes. Attorney Dempsey went door to door delivering the good news personally. Each of the 90 lots sold for $78,000 and Home Depot gets to place its fourth store in Memphis; the City of Memphis gets to collect $25 million per year in property taxes. The city also is protected from any potential liability for years of neglect and allegedly violating federal fair housing laws. Based on our research, it is clear that these two local attorneys worked completely for these Memphians.
The Truse- McKinney landowners knew the value of their property in 1986 when they set the price at $10.25 per square foot. They never wavered through several failed deals. Chastene Thompson, long-time former resident, said, “We were annexed in 1953. There has never been a storm drain, curb gutter or sidewalk ever put in here. He said rainwater from the Eastgate Shopping Center, the 5050 Poplar Building and Clark Tower sent thousands of gallons of water into the neighborhood.
Commercial Appeal, July 20, 1997, Page 12:
Former City Councilwoman Mary Rose McCormick said, “It’s obvious the drainage was designed to run under the railroad tracks and flow into this community. Residents had to fight the city to get garbage service, mail service and even to get proper telephone service. I think it was neglected because it was a Black community,” she said. “The city never neglected the predominately white Colonial View subdivision right across the street.” She left the council in 1995.
Dempsey said he had not meddled in the people’s business unless “they asked us to. We have helped and arranged some loans for a few.” (Source: Memphis Daily News, June 25. 1998, by Kathleen Burt)
Commercial Appeal, August 1, 1997
The same thing would happen in two parts in 1968 and 1971 when Boxtown was annexed. City Services — curbs, gutters, the proper amount of fire plugs, sidewalks, street lighting, all of the services most Memphians get — were supposed to be added. Just as with Truse-McKinney, Boxtown was left out. Memphis did not do for them what they should do for ALL citizens.
Annexation continued while extension of city services lagged
In 1970, Memphis annexed the area east of I-240 between Wolf River on the north, Nonconnah on the south, Germantown city limits on the east. It was known as Memphis East. The city put in a temporary fire station on Poplar Pike between Ridgeway and Massey that included Pumper 41 and Pumper 44, and a doublewide trailer for eight fire fighters.
When Memphis annexed Walnut Grove Lakes and Sanga Road, in 1984, the city placed a temporary fire station with a doublewide trailer for a five-man crew, Squirt 54 and Hose Wagon 54 on Sanga at Trinity until Station 54 could be built.
When Boxtown was annexed, the Fire Department should have put in a temporary station closer to the annexation area, where Fire Station 37 is now. Instead, for two years, Pumper 37 out of Fire Station 36, which is more than 3.8 street miles away, served the area. Boxtown was deprived of the first-class fire protection that Memphis was delivering to other areas in 1968.
In the 1990s, the Office of Planning and Development published a study showing a fire station at 6675 Winchester east of Ross. This was a city-built station, but the county fire department operated as Station 3. After annexation it would become Memphis Station 52, which meant it did not cover the area east of Kirby and north of the Nonconnah Creek, which is Station 41 on Ridgeway. So the many commercial sites, as well as the eight buildings at the FedEx complex and 100 homes in Winchester Hills west of Hacks Cross, did not get Pumper 52 from Winchester east of Ross until 1998 when Hickory Hill was annexed. They were getting less fire protection than Boxtown.
If you were a City Council member or a citizen and saw this report you would think that the area east of Kirby had proper fire coverage. But for almost 20 years, they did not because the county fire company was not coming.[2]
Sometime in the mid-80s, a serious auto accident at Winchester and Hacks Cross trapped people in their vehicles. Raymond Chiozza was captain of the watch in the Fire Alarm Office. He knew he did not have a close rescue tool. He quickly secured permission from the deputy chief and contacted Germantown Fire Department, which was dispatched and responded to the scene in six minutes, The Medic ambulance went with us. The closest Memphis ladder truck with a hydraulic rescue tool was Truck 12 at Rhodes and Getwell, 8.5 miles away. I was working for Germantown Fire at the time as lieutenant on Engine 130 responding from old Station 1 across from the railroad station three miles away. Our rescue was coming from Station 3 on Farmington one mile farther away. The Medic ambulance that responded from my station went with us. By the time Pumper 41 was on Ridgeway north of Quince and Truck 12 arrived, we had extricated the victims and had them prepared for transport.
Parts of Memphis remain even farther away from fire protection.
While annexation was seen as necessary for the city’s growth, the expected accompanying services were often delivered slowly or, in poorer neighborhoods, far less than adequatel
[1] Author’s Note: I believe that when Robert Dempsey, a real estate lawyer, came on board, that he was preparing to go after the City of Memphis for violations of the federal fair housing law from years of neglect. Dempsey said that Truse-McKinney was “junk property. Each lot had zero value individually.”
[2] Author’s Note: I’m sure the city knew this and was gambling that there would not be an incident. Even when I worked in the Memphis Fire Alarm office in the 70s, we covered station 41 with a pumper, usually 25 when 41 was out. When they were out, secondary reason was for St. Francis Hospital. That was in the 1970s.