Overton Park & Parkview Hotel

Judith Johnson & Associates901.603-0054

http://www.judithjohnsonpreservationservices.com/index.html

Plat of Overton Park c. 1901 After the 1893 Chicago Exhibition, the resulting City Beautiful Movement to set aside parklands swept the country finally arriving in Memphis in 1901. Acting on the suggestion of William Olmstead, famed designer of New York’s Central Park, the newly established Memphis Park Commission voted to purchase Lea’s Woods for $110,000 and to hire noted landscape architect George Kessler to design a system of scenic parks and parkways to link them. Kessler had participated in the design of New York’s Central Park. Kessler’s 1901 Plan for Overton Park shows a similar design of retaining the natural topography and vegetation and designing open spaces defined by the curving boundaries of untrimmed trees. The numerous later cultural institutions and recreational facilities now located there were not part of Kessler’s original plan.

On November 14, 1901, the City of Memphis purchased a 342-acre tract of land from Nashville residents Ella and Overton Lea (for $110,000) and “Lea’s Woods” became Overton Park. The park was designed by landscape architect George Kessler as part of a comprehensive plan that also included Martin Luther King-Riverside Park and the Memphis Parkway System. The park was officially named after John Overton, a co-founder of Memphis, on July 25, 1902.

Col. Robert W. Galloway was elected chairman of the Memphis Park Commission in 1903, a position which he held for the next thirteen years. Thanks to Galloway’s devotion and energies, under his direction, Overton, Riverside and Douglass Parks as well as the Parkway system were created. Galloway was born in Scotland in 1843 and emigrated here in 1856. Accounts vary but he probably began clerking on a steamboat and married his first wife in 1865. He began the Galloway Coal Company. In 1870 he partnered with Page Patterson to create the Patterson Transfer Company. Galloway became president and served in that capacity until 1910. Galloway was also a real estate developer, who built an early apartment house in 1894, the lovely Alcazar Apartment that stood at the corner of Fourth and Adams.

Galloway had an indirect financial interest in the creation of Overton Park as it opened up the undeveloped land adjacent to the park for development, much of which by this time was owned by him. Beginning in 1903 he was responsible for developing the Evergreen subdivision bounded by Speedway (North Parkway), McLean, Poplar and Dickinson.

Galloway’s first wife died in 1902 and he established the Mary Galloway Home her honor. Shortly thereafter, Galloway met Catherine May Edmunds, a recent widow with young two children. They were married in 1908 and he appropriately erected a palatial home which reputedly cost over $100,000 for his new family on a city block on the northwest corner of Overton Park Avenue and McLean Boulevard. It was named “Paisley Hall” after Paisley, Scotland where Galloway had been born. Galloway adopted the two young Edmunds children who were renamed Robert Galloway, Jr. and Roberta. The seventy-six year old conservationist died at home in 1918 after a two-year illness. He was suffering badly from gout when a fire at “Paisley Hall” caused him to be moved downtown to the Chisca Hotel. His condition deteriorated so he went to the old Gartly-Ramsey Hospital on Jackson but was moved back home where he died. He is buried at Elmwood.

West entrance to Overton Park

Overton Spring

Overton Park Zoo (now named the Memphis Zoo) began in 1906, when a resident of Memphis couldn't keep his pet black bear in his backyard. He had it put in a pen in the park, which attracted many people, inspiring the idea to place more animals on display. The Memphis Zoo is now one of the largest in the United States, attracting 1 million visitors per year. The zoo houses two pandas, who are local celebrities, as well as three polar bears, brought in to the Northwest Passage exhibition which opened in March 2006.

Memphis Zoo

Carnivore House

Lick Creek

Bear Pit

Bear Pit

Bird House

Hippo House

Clown Day

Entrance c. 1960

Monkey Island

Originally known as the Brooks Memorial Art Gallery, the beautiful building has been referred to as "the jewel box in the park" ever since its construction at a cost of $115,000. Initiated by Mrs. E.A. Neely, there had been various interests and efforts to establish an art museum since 1906, the same year that the nearby Overton Park Zoo was established. The project did not significantly develop until 1913, however, when Bessie Vance Brooks donated $100,000 to the City of Memphis in honor of her late husband, Samuel Hamilton Brooks, who died in 1912. S.H. Brooks had moved to Memphis from Ohio in 1858 to work in his brother's wholesale grocery business. After serving in the Confederate army, he formed Brooks-Neely wholesale grocers which was a prosperous partnership until Brooks' retirement in 1897. Brooks married his second wife, Bessie Vance, in 1902. From a prominent Memphis family and formerly an art student in Paris, Mrs. Brooks was inspired by the plans that had been developed by Mrs. Neely, the wife of her late husband's business partner, and hired New York architect James Gamble Rogers to design a museum in 1913.

d. 1905-1909 Shelby County Courthouse -Rogers

Beaux Arts

D. 1906 J. P Morgan Library McKim Meade & White, NYC

D. 1915 Brooks Museum James Gamble Rogers

Goyer-Lee House-Victorian Village 1848, 1852-1871 Jones & Baldwin

Before 1959, the Memphis Academy of Art, founded in 1936 by Florence McIntyre, occupied the Goyer-Lee House in Victorian Village. Having outgrown that venerable home, the school looked for a new space, and under Rust's leadership developed the program for a new building in Overton Park

Memphis Academy of Art-Mann & Harrover1959-New Fomalism style. Original competition juried by Philip Johnson, later won an award from Progressive Architecture magazine.

Statues and Memorials

McFarland Clock TowerBuilt in 1930 to honor an original member of the Park Commission

"The Doughboy" statue - a memorial to World War I. It was made in 1926 from copper pennies that were collected by local school children.

The statue was designed and constructed by sculptor Nancy Hahn at a cost of $15,000; it was sponsored by Daughters of the American Revolution.

Jenny Higbee Memorial-1908The Higbee School was located at the intersection of Beale and Lauderdale. The building was a three-story brick with seventeen rooms devoted to study and recitation. The grounds were beautifully shaded with oaks, elms and magnolias. In addition a new building has just been completed on the grounds . It was an imposing structure and well arranged to meet all requirements. Besides the common branches of an English education, the course of study included the higher English branches, natural sciences, literature, ancient and modern languages, music, phonography, painting and wood carving. The object of the principal of this school is expressed in her motto, "Not many things, but much." The Higbee School quickly became one of the South's leading educational institutions for young women.

Higbee School- Beale at Lauderadale In 1838, the South Memphis Company, owned by Robertson Topp, bought 414 acres of the Ramsey grant and began land sales. By 1845, Topp had incorporated the town of South Memphis, which was bordered by Union, Delaware, Walnut, and East Streets. The area of South Memphis became very fashionable for the wealthy to build homes, filling the streets of Beale Street, Linden Avenue, and Vance Avenue. By 1850, South Memphis was incorporated into the city of Memphis and continued its popularity as a residential area until the end of the 19th century..

Robertson Topp MansionGreek Revival.

1957 E. H. Crump Memorial

“The Parkview, the city’s only luxury apartment hotel, is located at 1914 Poplar Avenue, adjacent to the fashionable upper middle class Evergreen neighborhood, (NR 1-11-85) and also at the entrance to Overton Park (NR 10-25-79). Built in 1923, it is a ten-story building and originally had 165 suites. It was conceived of and designed by George D. Barnett, architect from St. Louis who believed Memphis was ready for a high end apartment hotel. It cost $1,200,000 to build and although popular in its early days as its residents were among the Memphis elite, it changed ownership and management many times over the decades. The Parkview, now called the Parkview Manor, still exists today and is used as a Presbyterian retirement community.”

Fairyland Theatre c. 1905

Original rendering of Parkview Hotel

Gateworth in St. Louis

Parkview Cream Pitcher

keyfob

C. 1950

The Overton Park Shell was built in 1936 as part of "The New Deal". Designed by architect Max Furbringer, it was modeled after similar shells in Chicago, New York, and St. Louis. During the 1930s and 1940s, the Shell was home to Memphis Open Air Theater (MOAT), which presented various light opera, musicals, and symphony orchestras. In 1954, Elvis Presley performed what music historians call the first ever rock and roll show. It was his first paid performance. In the mid-1960s, the Shell was turned over to the Memphis Arts Center, who planned to raze it. However a campaign gathered 6,000 signatures in order to prevent the destruction. Once again in 1972, the Shell was nearly demolished to build a parking garage, but was again saved by the community. Various plans came and went throughout the 80s and by 1985 the Shell lay dormant. In 2007, the Shell was renamed Levitt Shell and a large scale renovation funded by the Levitt Foundation began. With the completion of the renovations in 2008, free concerts are now once again held in the Shell

Levitt Shell

In the late 1950s Overton Park became the subject of controversy when 26 of its 342 acres were condemned by the State of Tennessee for a planned right-of-way for Interstate 40. Residents of Midtown Memphis formed an advocacy group called Citizens to Preserve Overton Park and challenged the plan in court. In 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in CPOP’s favor in the landmark case Citizens to Preserve Overton Park v. Volpe. The 26 acres were finally deeded back to the City of Memphis in 1987.