|
Burkle Estate Wants Funds
Joan Nelson and Elaine Turner of Heritage Tours, Inc., are seeking the money to add central heating and air conditioning, security doors and windows, household furnishings, and a parking lot and landscaping. The city council’s General Services Committee has requested additional financial information about the house, which has been operating as a museum, “SlaveHaven.” In 1996, the council voted unanimously to donate $100,000 toward the restoration of the home, which was 80 percent complete before two fires damaged the property in late 1997. Local legend maintains that the house served as a haven for runaway slaves escaping to the North, citing a hidden passageway in the cellar that supposedly led to the Mississippi River. County records, however, indicate that German immigrant Jacob Burkle bought the property in 1871 and that the home was built in 1895. In a February 27, 1997, article about the Burkle Estate, Dr. Charles Crawford, director of the oral history department at the University of Memphis, told the Flyer, “I’m always cautious about legends. I don’t discount folklore – it’s a part of our heritage. But as a historian, I am more concerned with accurate historical records.” Bill Day, owner of the Hunt-Phelan Home on Beale Street, says
Burkle’s granddaughter Katherine Compton once showed him a thankful
letter her grandfather had received from an escaped slave. Compton’s
records were destroyed by a relative after her death.
Final Chapter for Book & Author Dinner
The dinner has served as an annual fund-raiser and opportunity to bring accomplished writers to Memphis. In the past, the social soiree has featured John Fergus Ryan, Joycelyn Elders, Larry Brown, Jill McCorkle, and Willie Morris, among many others. In previous years the writers have read excerpts from their works, and Memphis magazine announced the winners of its annual fiction contest. The committee voted against the dinner. Instead, they decided to devote all efforts toward the building of the new Main Library on Poplar where AutoZone was located. The executive committee brings their decision to the full board
at the next Friends meeting on August 20th.
Guns Go AcademicRangemaster has recently gotten an unusual – and free – advertising plug from the University of Memphis. Stephen Wolf, owner of Rangemaster, wrote a four-page article in the U of M’s Business Perspectives magazine that focuses entirely on Rangemaster and how effectively the shooting range teaches individuals to deter crime. The quarterly publication is produced by the university’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research. According to bureau assistant director Lee Grehan, Business Perspectives usually examines “some issue that the bureau feels is important to the local or statewide economy.” The Rangemaster article, “Making Memphians Safer, One Customer at a Time,” makes no reference to anything about the local economy. Wolf brags about the quality of his gun-training program – everything from his staff to his air-conditioned gun range. He even quotes himself about how you, too, can “easily learn to effectively dispatch these thugs” in our society and claims that his clients are “60 times safer” than nongraduates of Rangemaster. The other articles in the quarterly include an analysis of the relationship between poverty and crime, and a feature on District Attorney General Bill Gibbons. Business Perspectives editor Jennifer Jaudon says that she was looking for a “creative solution” to crime, and found one in Wolf’s Rangemaster. “From what I’ve heard from [Wolf], a lot of businessmen are taking
that route as a solution to crime,” she says. None of the facts
Wolf used in his article were questioned by the quarterly, Jaudon
says.
Death of a Psychic: Joel Hurley, 1935-1998
Hurley, who didn’t drive, could often be seen wearing sandals and walking around Midtown with his meditation stick. His cascading mane of white hair and snowy beard made him difficult to miss. The 63-year-old New York City native didn’t have any close family. On Monday, a friend, Don Morgan, who identified him at the morgue, was trying to find Hurley’s next of kin. In addition to his psychic work, Hurley was the secretary for Save Our Shell, Inc. and active in the community. He worked as a “utility person” at the Advertising Checking Bureau, Inc., organizing files and newspapers. By press time Monday, a police report was unavailable. But police say Hurley ran out in front of the car that struck him. He was dead when police arrived. The driver was not charged. “No one will know the name Joel Hurley,” Morgan says. “But when they see a picture of him, they will know him. With his white hair and beard he looked like Santa. He was a very kind, loving person.” A memorial service will be held this Saturday at 10 a.m. at the
Overton Park Shell.
Hunt-Phelan Slave School To Become “Monument”by Lauren Mutter
Day will break ground for the 70-room inn within the next few weeks. It will include a day spa and a 3,500-square-foot ballroom for weddings and other parties the home hosts. “The plan was always to put it [the hotel] up there,” Days says. The wooden shed is not really in a prime location on the property, he explains, and moving it to put up the hotel will be beneficial for all parties involved, including visitors to the home. Once they rebuild the school at the side of the house, it will be included in the tour, and it will even be used as a school. “We want to offer continuing education there and offer kids to come and experience what school was like just after the Civil War,” Day says. Right now, the building is fenced off and hidden under a clump of overgrown trees. But in that location it at least holds its historical integrity and authenticity, which Day says was verified by Dr. Charles Crawford, director of the oral history department at the University of Memphis. A sign in front of the structure explains that when the Driver family reclaimed the estate after the Civil War, a government condition was that they build a new school to educate freed slaves. They built the wooden schoolhouse in 1865 as part of the Freedman’s Bureau System, and it was among the first educational facilities for Af-rican Americans in this part of the country. Day is quick to point out that there isn’t much left of the school, anyway. “You’ve got to remember in ’94 [in an ice storm] it got crushed in. The majority of it is just layin’ on the ground.” In the move, “what we can’t use, we’ll have to get new.” He says he has heard no opposition to the plan, but callers to the Flyer have expressed concern that such an important building in American history may be destroyed. They suggested that Day consider renovation or restoration instead. Dr. John Harkins, a history professor at Memphis University School and author of Metropolis of the American Nile, expresses dismay at the plan to rebuild the school. “If [the slave school] is legitimate,” he says, “that would really be a devastating blow to the heritage of the city.” “We’re just moving it, not destroying it,” Day exclaims. “As far
as renovating it, you’d have to be a magician! There’s nothing
there to renovate!”
Why Are We Ignoring the Incas?by Meredith Pierce Crowds haven’t exactly been beating down The Pyramid doors to get into the “Ancestors of the Incas,” on display through September 16th. That’s no secret. The Titanic exhibition of 1997 drew 635,000 visitors. “The Etruscans,” the least successful Wonders show until now, had 119,771 visitors. As of August 16th, the Inca exhibition has seen just 114, 930 visitors, though there’s still a month left of the show’s Memphis run. What accounts for this lackluster attendance? To find out, we surveyed a number of people who know a thing or two about marketing. Kevin Kane, head of the Memphis Convention & Visitors Bureau, attributes many factors to the low attendance: “They were a bit late getting the message out, but ... unfortunately the exhibit doesn’t have the sizzle or appeal of a China [“The Imperial Tombs of China” in 1995] or a Titanic.” Kane also says that there has been a regional decline in tourism from 1997. “This exhibit may lose money,” he says, “but if you look around, the Versailles exhibit in Jackson [Mississippi] is doing about half of what they thought they’d do. Nashville is down.... The whole region is just off. Nineteen ninety-seven was a very special and unique year.” Jack Kyle is the former public-relations director for Wonders and currently the executive director of the Mississippi Commission for International Cultural Exchange, which is presently hosting the Wonders-type exhibition “The Splendors of Versailles.” Kyle echoes some of Kane’s sentiments: “Our attendance has not been the same as those for the ‘Palaces of St. Petersburg’ exhibit. No one can prognosticate how an exhibit is going to do. Spending X amount of money does not ensure that people will come.” Valerie Bryant, chef and president of the River Terrace Yacht Club and a member of the Sports Authority, believes that a lack of education and advertising has caused poor attendance. “I think probably there has not been enough information given out,” she says. “This is a much smaller venue than Ramesses [“Ramesses the Great” in1989]. Some may ask, Who are the Incas? They probably did not do enough education before the exhibit.” Greer Simonton, chief operating officer at Archer Malmo, who handled the advertising for “Titanic,” blames the lack of advertising. “To my knowledge they don’t really advertise in Memphis, at least when I handled them,” he says. “I have not really noticed much advertising.” Thomas Boggs, owner of Huey’s and past chairman and current board member of the CVB, doesn’t believe advertising has been a factor: “Following a series like ‘Titanic,’ all of us in the entertainment industry knew that attendance would drop off. It would have dropped off no matter what we would have had. There’s just not much interest. That’s why we don’t have Wonders every year.” But then again, maybe it’s just how you present it. After Memphis, “Ancestors of the Incas” heads to the Florida International Museum in St. Petersburg, where public relations coordinator Matt Bergendahl has higher expectations. For one thing, the show’s name will be changed to “Empires of Mystery.” Bergendahl adds, “What we’ll try to do is make it more interesting for different age groups. It’s more of an adventure.... We are not going to have straight galleries the same way they [Wonders] have. We will have more of a maze. You will walk through the rain forest and the desert in search for gold and at the end, if you make it, there will be a tomb of gold.” He adds, "I truly think that this [format] will be more intriguing
than yours.” |
– Lauren Mutter
The Tennessee Historical Commission has approved more than 1,200
sites for historical markers, only 30 of which refer to African-American
history. One of them stands in front of the Hunt-Phelan Home,
which has in its backyard a tumble-down wooden shack that once
served as a school for freed slaves of all ages. This symbol of
enlightenment is now being “taken down and moved less than 100
yards” for the sake of a “really upscale” hotel, says Bill Day,
owner of the home.
