The boundary between East Memphis and Midtown has always been rather vague. Some Memphians insist that East Parkway serves as the border between the two neighborhoods; others say it’s Highland — which these days is still many miles west of the development that you might call “East Memphis” today.
Heck, you might as well consider the I-240 loop as the boundary, while you’re at it.
But in the 1940s, a gas station could be called the East Memphis Motor Company, and no one questioned the location — even though it stood right in the heart of today’s Midtown, at the northeast corner of Cooper and Madison, today’s Overton Square.