Memphis

Memphis sits on the Chickasaw Bluffs above the Mississippi River, in the far southwestern corner of Tennessee — high ground that keeps it safely above the floods of the great river. Founded in 1819 and named for the ancient Egyptian capital on the Nile, it grew into the commercial hub of the Mid-South, the market and shipping center for the cotton grown across the surrounding Mississippi Delta.

The river made Memphis a major inland port and rail crossing, and the flat, fertile Delta lands around it produced the cotton and the music — the blues of Beale Street — for which it became famous. It sits at the meeting point of Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi, the largest city on the river between St. Louis and New Orleans, and a modern center of logistics and freight.

• Tennessee
  The Volunteer State, a long ribbon across the South located in