1960s Downtown

Downtown / Medical Center

in the 1960s

The caption from this 1960s postcard reads:
MEMPHIS ON THE MISSISSIPPI. Welcome to Tennessee’s Largest City. Memphis is known as a place of Good Abode . . . a growing city which ranks second to none in national acclaim won for cleanliness and beautification.

Click to enlarge. C. B. S. Card Service, 501 Franklin Drive, Paris, Tenn. 38242

Riverboat on the Mississippi

Click to enlarge.

The caption from this 1960s postcard reads:
MEMPHIS ON THE MISSISSIPPI. ‘A Place of Good Abode’. Memphis on the Mississippi was named for the Egyptian city of the same name on the Nile. The name means Place of Good Abode. Andrew Jackson, one of the founders and later the seventh President of the United States, is generally credited with naming the village when it was established in 1819.

Photo by Caldwell & Thompson

Click to enlarge. Thompson’s Community Service, 1220 Chickasaw, Paris, Tennessee

The caption from this 1960s postcard reads:

Memorial Fountain, erected in memory of those who served in World War II and the Korean War, located at Madison and Front Streets, at the entrance to the U. S. main Post Office and Customs House. Memphis Zero Milestone located at base of this memorial

Click to enlarge. Bluff City News Co., Memphis, Tenn.

Night View, 1960s

The caption from this 1960s postcard reads:

THE FIRST NATIONAL BANK BUILDING as seen on the Memphis skyline at dusk overlooking the mighty Mississippi River. The new twenty-five story banking office contains more than 2200 individual perimeter lights which makes it an outstanding Memphis landmark.

Click to enlarge. Bluff City News Co., Memphis, Tenn.

The caption from this 1960s postcard reads:

SKYLINE OF MEMPHIS, TENN. The Chickasaw Indians chose this site high on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River and named the village Chisca. In 1819 Andrew Jackson was one of the founders of Memphis, which has had a remarkable growth, and is one of the country’s greatest inland ports, and the world’s largest cotton market.

Click to enlarge. Bluff City News Co., Memphis, Tenn.

Share Your Memories

Post your memories.

Submitted by: Mary McClure : 21 Dec 2007, 22:16

I was a passenger on a train in the late 50's or early 60's a couple of times. I rode to girl scout camp Kiwani in Hardy, Ark. I remember going across the MS river on that train! I also rode on a train to Chicago from Memphis.

Submitted by: Anna Barham Hamilton : 22 Dec 2007, 18:56

Remember when all my girlfriends would wait for the Cotton Carnvial barge to come down the river....When the royalty departed, they allowed us to get on the barge and dance the night away....Such wonderful memories and such fun!!!!

Submitted by: Pat Curren : 24 Dec 2007, 08:28

I remember going Christmas shopping in Memphis each year. After parking we would walk through a tunnel filled with exotic food items. I remember fried grasshopers and chocolate covered ants. Then we would enter an enchanted Christmas area and see Mr. Bingle. It was pure magic!

Submitted by: Nina J. Stone : 26 Dec 2007, 14:38

My Dad worked @the fire Dept. and we could go up in the fire tower and get a good view of the barge and watch the fireworks. It was so much fun to see all the decorations and store windows. The side streets allowed the cold wind off the river to make you very cold.
We used to go to Riverside Park for picnics on July 4th and Labor Day and spend the entire day.

Submitted by: Sam VanBibber : 18 Aug 2008, 12:24

Going downtown to Lowenstein's windows and seeing Mr. Bingle make his first appearance of the season was a special time for us as children.My Grandmother use to always find out when Mr.Bingle was going to come out for the first time and she took us.It was a sign that Christmas was coming soon. I remember seeing so many Santas ringing the bell at the different department stores and got confused, I thought there was only one Santa and couldn't understand why so many.We always rode the bus downtown so my sister and I counted all the Santas on the way home.It was baffling to us! lololol

Submitted by: June : 23 Jun 2009, 20:55

My friends and I would ride the bus downtown from Whitehaven to get our pictures made at Blue Light Studio, then go to George Klein's dance party and have a rockin' good time.

Submitted by: jane Holman : 20 Feb 2011, 07:37

The tunnel was in the Goldsmith's Department Store. You could get your picture taken with Santa there. I remember eating at Brittling's downtown every Sunday after church and loving their hard rolls and fried haddock. I would always get their chess pie for dessert. My dad would tip the person who took our trays to our table around twenty five cents a tray.

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