Memphis is a city in the southwest corner of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. Memphis rises above the Mississippi River on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff just below the mouth of the Wolf River. As of 2006, Memphis had an estimated population of 670,902, making it the largest city in the state of Tennessee, the second largest in the southeastern region (only to Jacksonville, Florida), and the 17th largest in the United States
   Despite such early outposts, the land comprising present-day Memphis remained in a largely unorganized territory throughout most of the 18th century, while the boundaries of what would become Tennessee continued to evolve from its parent — the Carolina Colony, later North Carolina and South Carolina. By 1796, the community was the westernmost point of the newly admitted state of Tennessee.
   Memphis was founded in 1820 by John Overton, James Winchester, and Andrew Jackson and was incorporated as a city in 1826. The city was named after the ancient capital of Egypt on the Nile River.
   The cotton economy of the antebellum South depended on the forced labor of large numbers of African-American slaves, and Memphis became a major slave market. Slaves seeking their freedom turned to the Underground Railroad to escape to the free states of the North, and the Memphis home of Jacob Burkle was a way-station on their route to freedom.
   At the time of the American Civil War, Memphis was already an important regional city because of its river trade and railroad connections, particularly the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, completed in 1857. Tennessee seceded from the Union in June 1861 and Memphis briefly became a Confederate stronghold. Union forces captured Memphis from Confederacy in the Battle of Memphis on June 6, 1862, and the city remained under Union control for the duration of the war, except for a dramatic raid conducted by Nathan Bedford Forrest. Memphis became a Union supply base and continued to prosper throughout the war.
   Extensive yellow fever epidemics in the 1870s (1873, 1878, 1879) devastated the city. At that time it wasn't understood that this fatal disease was carried by a mosquito vector, so public health measures were unsuccessful. So many died or fled the epidemics that in 1879 Memphis lost its city charter and until 1893 Memphis was governed as merely a taxing district. Eventually improvements in sanitation removed the breeding grounds of the mosquito vector and the city began to grow again. In 1897, Memphis' pyramid-shaped pavilion was a conspicuous part of the Tennessee Centennial exposition.
   Memphis grew into the world's largest spot cotton market (over 40% of the nation's crop was traded here) and the world's largest hardwood lumber market. Into the 1950s, it was the world's largest mule market. From the 1910s to the 1950s, Memphis was a hotbed of machine politics under the direction of E. H. "Boss" Crump. During the Crump era, Memphis developed an extensive network of parks and public works as part of the national City Beautiful Movement. During the 1960s the city was at the center of civil rights issues, notably the location of a sanitation workers' strike. Memphis is also where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968 at the Lorraine Motel, the day after giving his prophetic "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech at the Mason Temple.
   Memphis is well known for its cultural contributions to the identity of the American south. Beginning in the early 20th Century Memphis became famous for the innovative strains of African-American music, including gospel, blues, jazz, soul, and Rhythm and Blues genres, a tradition that continues to this day. Many notable blues musicians grew up in and around the Memphis and northern Mississippi, and performed there regularly. These included such musical greats as Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, B.B. King, and Howlin' Wolf. The first African American-formatted radio station, WDIA, was founded in the city in 1947 by Bert Ferguson and John Pepper, and included a young B. B. King as disc jockey. B. B. King's moniker was derived from his WDIA nickname 'Beale Street Blues Boy', a reference to Memphis' Beale Street on which many nightclubs and blues venues were located. The young Elvis Presley frequently listened to gospel and soul music, and many of his early recordings were inspired or written by African-American composers and recording artists in the Mid-South area.
   In addition to a rich musical heritage, Memphis also boasts a long culinary legacy dominated by regional barbecue. Memphis barbecue is rendered distinct by its sole usage of pork (as opposed to beef), focus on rib and shoulder cuts of meat, and multiple locally-owned barbecue restaurants. Celebration of this local dish reaches its climax each year in May, when the Memphis in May Festival holds its annual World-Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest.

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U.S. Highway 78

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