Friday, August 21, 2009
The Worst Intersection in Memphis
Posted by Vance Lauderdale on Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 3:19 PM
Well, half a century ago, traffic engineers must have decided to make that intersection a bit more challenging — by running a railroad diagonally across it. To make it even more interesting, the railroad track was elevated, so automobile drivers had to zig-zag around heavy cast-iron support beams. You had to really look hard to find the traffic light, dangling from one of the trestles. And making a left turn here, with your visibility so restricted, while a freight train rumbled overhead, was just about the most stressful thing you could do.
I found a photograph of this curious intersection, taken around 1950, judging by the cars and that sleek old city bus. The view is looking eastward on Central, with Fairview Junior High in the background. The Pan-Am gas station on the corner (just the sign is visible), has been replaced by a Kwik-Mart.
I also found an old map (below) which shows the route of the railroad — identified on the map as the "Union R.R." — cutting right across the campus of what was then Christian Brothers College, which must have been quite a headache for the school's students and faculty. Click on the image to enlarge it. Can you see it?
Somebody finally came to their senses and removed this eyesore, though I can't say when that happened, exactly. There's no trace of its path today on the Christian Brothers University campus, and on the opposite (or southwest) corner, the former right-of-way was converted into Spanish War Memorial Park, a nice bit of green space in our city.
PHOTO COURTESY SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS LIBRARIES
Comments (7)
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Vance,
If you look at the satellite view in Google Maps or such of the area on the southwest corner of the intersection, you can clearly see the path through the northern part of the Cooper-Young neighborhood. Here is a link:
Keep up the good work.
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Actually there is a trace of the right-of-way. The shape of the baseball field and the shape of the Edwin Circle neighborhood.
Mike Condren
Professor Emeritus
Christian Brothers University
If you drive South on Cox from Central you'll find the old rail line. It's about a block and a half South. I think the next cross street is Higbee.
[Actually, it's York, but you're right about the path. — Vance]
Yes, Google Earth/maps clearly shows the original right-of-way of the old railroad. Moving roughly southwestward, the tracks crossed Cox, then Meda, and apparently these are the tracks (now abandoned) that crossed over Central on that nicely decorated trestle. The route went as far as Barksdale, where the tracks apparently tied in with others curving in from the northeast.
Now, to the northeast, you can indeed see where they truncated the baseball fields and the northern edge of Edwin Circle to make way for the railroad. It's hard to see where the tracks went after that, but I assume they tied in with other tracks just east of Hollywood.
And between the Spanish American War park and Cox you can see pieces of the old track. The statue was put there in 1956, according to the marker.
The 1996 CBU yearbook has a picture on page 67, with the caption "1951: College acquires right-of-way from Union (MoPac) railway." On page 68, a photo with the caption "1952: Aerial Shot of Campus" shows the bed of the railway, but it looks like the rails are gone and in the right part of the picture there appears to be a spur line that hits the rail line cutting across CBU where the Shelby County Health Department has buildings behind CBU.
On page 69, a picture with the caption "St. Joseph Hall Completed, 1954" shows the rail bed gone and grass growing in the area. A picture on page 71 taken in the early 1960s shows no evidence of where the railroad right-of-way cut across East Parkway and cut across the intersection and then went behind the CBU steam plant. However, on page 74 is a CBU picture from the early 1980s and at the edge of the woods (where the current baseball field is located) you can see what appears to be a walking path made from the old railway bed and the grass beyond (heading towards Hollywood) shows evidence that it was once a road or rail.
Awhile back I was researching the rail lines cutting through CBU, and I noticed that on tax maps, that the rail line on the other side of CBU, the one that cuts across East Parkway, is labeled Hinkel Ave. The MoPac line on the Central side of CBU, after crossing Central and East Parkway, cut across CBU and probably crossed Hollywood in between the back edge of the Edwin Circle neighborhood and somewhere between CBU's new apartments and the Airport radio shack at the edge of the CBU property. At first I believed it might have crossed where the Boy Scout offices are, but in between those offices and the airport shack/CBU apartments used to sit a house that burned a few years ago and was built at the same time as the other houses on Oakdale. After crossing Hollywood, the rails went through what is Tobey Field and the buildings of Memphis City Schools. The rail tied into the rails on the Avery side of CBU somewhere under the Union/Poplar overpass.
There is a cool old switching tower over on the still-active rails that cross Avery. If anyone from the railroad is on here and that think it's for sale, tell me who to contact.
Dr. Condren of CBU has a great Memphis railroad site. Lots of old pictures of Memphis depots, yards, etc. http://condrenrails.com/Memphis-Railroad-P…
