city, seat (1819) of Shelby county, extreme southwestern Tennessee, U.S. It lies on the Chickasaw bluffs above the Mississippi River where the borders of Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee meet. Founded in 1819 on the site of a Chickasaw Indian village and a U.S. fort (1797), it was named for the ancient Egyptian city because of its location on the Mississippi. Andrew Jackson, later U.S. president, was one of its founders.
Memphis grew rapidly with the expansion of cotton growing in the South and because of its transportation facilities by railroad and river. It was incorporated as a town in 1826 and received a city charter in 1849. A Confederate military centre early in the American Civil War, it was captured by a Federal gunboat force in 1862 and remained occupied until after the war.
In the 1870s yellow fever devastated Memphis, killing 8,000 residents. The city became bankrupt; its population declined, and in 1879 it surrendered its charter. Drastic sanitary reforms and its central location contributed to its economic recovery, and a new city charter was granted in 1893. By 1900, with a population of more than 100,000, Memphis had regained its position as the state's largest city. Economic development was accelerated after World War II.
Memphis is a major cotton and inland hardwood-lumber market, a wholesale centre, a producer of mixed feed, and a distributor of drugs and chemicals. It manufactures a wide variety of goods and serves an agricultural area noted for livestock and poultry, cotton, soybeans, vegetables, and forest products.
Also important to the city's economy are its extensive medical and educational facilities. Educational institutions include Rhodes College (1848; Presbyterian), LeMoyne-Owen College (1862), Christian Brothers University (1871; Roman Catholic), University of Memphis (1912), a state technical institute, and the University of Tennessee, Memphis, The Health Science Center.
Since 1931 Memphis has held a cotton carnival in May. Memphis is one of the birthplaces of the blues and is associated particularly with the black composer W.C. Handy, who immortalized the city's Beale Street in one of his songs. The civil-rights leader the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., while visiting Memphis in support of a 1968 sanitation workers' strike, was killed on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel by a sniper's bullet. James Earl Ray was convicted of the murder. The motel room in which Dr. King stayed during his visit is now a museum. Elvis Presley launched his rock and roll career from a Memphis recording studio, and since his death in 1977 Graceland, his city mansion and burial site, has become a shrine.
Aside from West Memphis, Ark., Memphis' main suburbs in Tennessee include Whitehaven, Millington, and Germantown. Large U.S. Navy installations are at Millington to the north; Chucalissa, a prehistoric Indian village, is to the south. Pop. (1990) city, 618,652; Memphis MSA, 1,007,306; (1994 est.) city, 614,285; (1995 est.) Memphis MSA, 1,068,891.
To cite this page:city, Osage and Tulsa counties, seat (1907) of Tulsa county, northeastern Oklahoma, U.S., situated on the Arkansas River. It originated in 1836 as a settlement of Creek Indian immigrants who named it for their former town in Alabama. White settlement began after the arrival in 1882 of the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway; the city was incorporated in 1898. The discovery of oil in nearby Red Fork (1901) and Glenn Pool (1905) launched the mid-continent oil and gas boom, and phenomenal growth followed. More than 800 major oil companies now have plants and offices in the city, which is the site of the International Petroleum Exposition. The main economic activity is based on petroleum--exploration, drilling, production, refining, and research. The aviation-aerospace industry also is important to Tulsa's economy, which includes a wide range of manufacturing and wholesale distribution activities. The city serves as the commercial and financial centre of a rich agricultural area and is the national headquarters of the U.S. Jaycees.
The municipally owned Spavinaw Water System brings clear water from the Ozark foothills, 70 miles (110 km) away. Surrounded by man-made lakes and reservoirs, Tulsa, with the nearby port of Catoosa on the Verdigris River, is the head of navigation for the Arkansas River Navigation System. It thus has access via the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers to the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico and to barge transportation complementing airlines, railroads, and trucklines. The city's cultural institutions include the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art (1949), the University of Tulsa (1894), and Oral Roberts University (1965). Pop. (1990) city, 367,302; Tulsa MSA, 708,954; (1994 est.) city, 374,851; (1995 est.) Tulsa MSA, 746,500.
To cite this page:city, seat (1835) of Lucas county, northwestern Ohio, U.S., at the mouth of the Maumee River (bridged). It lies along Maumee Bay (southwestern tip of Lake Erie), 55 miles (89 km) southwest of Detroit and is a principal Great Lakes port, being the hub of a metropolitan complex that includes Ottawa Hills, Maumee, Oregon, Sylvania, Perrysburg, and Rossford. The area was opened to white settlement after the Battle of Fallen Timbers, a conflict fought nearby in 1794 and resolved in a series of Indian treaties negotiated between 1795 and 1817. Fort Industry (1803-05) was located at the mouth of Swan Creek (now downtown Toledo), where permanent settlement was made after the War of 1812. Two villages, Port Lawrence (1817) and Vistula (1832), were consolidated in 1833 and named for Toledo, Spain. The united community was incorporated as a city in 1837.
Ohio's decision to include the Toledo area (then part of the Michigan Territory) in the state's canal system led to a boundary dispute (the so-called Toledo War of 1835). Residents of the city organized to transfer the political jurisdiction of the lower Maumee from the Michigan Territory to Ohio. Michigan, led by Governor Stevens T. Mason, opposed this and sent troops. Ohio Governor Robert Lucas called out the militia, and the state legislature organized most of the disputed area into Lucas County, with the present Ohio line as the northern boundary. The dispute was settled by President Andrew Jackson in favour of Ohio. In 1836 the U.S. Congress compensated Michigan for the loss by awarding it the Upper Peninsula and admission to statehood.
Industrial development was spurred in the 1830s and '40s by the arrival of the railroads, the construction of the Wabash and Erie and Miami and Erie canals, and by the discovery of local deposits of gas and oil in 1844. Glassmaking (now a major industry) was introduced in the late 1880s by Edward Libbey and Michael Owens. Toledo is now a major commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. Its port, connected with the St. Lawrence Seaway, is one of the world's largest for bituminous coal shipping. Foreign commerce receipts are mostly for grain, wood pulp, paper, pig iron, iron ore, stone, sand and gravel, aluminum ingots, and structural steel. Highly diversified manufactures include glass, automobiles (including the celebrated Jeep), auto parts, plastics, petroleum, weighing machines, furnaces, machinery, and tools.
The University of Toledo was established in 1872, Davis College in 1858, the Medical College of Ohio in 1964, and Owens Community College in 1965. The Toledo Museum of Art has a notable glass collection. The city has a Roman Catholic cathedral (Our Lady Queen of the Holy Rosary), an orchestra, and zoological gardens with an open-air amphitheatre. Nearby are the Crane Creek State Park and the Toledo Raceway Park for horse racing. Pop. (1990) city, 332,943; Toledo MSA, 614,128; (1994 est.) city, 322,550; (1995 est.) Toledo MSA, 612,798.
To cite this page:city, seat (1836) of Kent county, western Michigan, U.S. It is situated along the Grand River, 25 miles (40 km) east of Lake Michigan and 149 miles (240 km) west-northwest of Detroit. It was founded in 1826 by the Frenchman Louis Campau as a trading post where several important Ottawa Indian trails (which are now diagonal streets) converged at the rapids on the Grand River. Ample waterpower generated by the 18-foot (5.5-metre) fall of the river and the availability of valuable lumber from nearby pine and hardwood forests resulted in the establishment of a number of sawmills and woodworking (especially furniture-making) industries in the town.
Following the display of Grand Rapids furniture at the Philadelphia Centennial in 1876, the city gained a reputation as the furniture capital of America. Buyers the world over went to its furniture markets, first held in 1878. The diversification of its industry began with the advent of World War I, and metal-based manufacturing industries thereafter exceeded furniture in value and output. Nevertheless, Grand Rapids furniture produced by its skilled craftsmen has maintained its eminence in quality, style, and design. Grand Rapids has become the state's second largest city and is the principal trading centre of western Michigan, including a large area devoted to fruit farming and truck gardening.
The city's Public Museum (founded in 1854 as a gift of the lumber baron T. Stewart White) includes historical and contemporary furniture exhibits. The city's public library contains one of the country's most important collections of books on furniture design and manufacture.
Calvin College (1876), Aquinas College (1887), Grand Rapids Community College (1914), Davenport College of Business (1866), and Kendall College of Art and Design (1928) are located there, while the Grand Valley State University (1960) is in nearby Allendale. The city has some 50 parks, including a zoo.
Grand Rapids was the boyhood home of President Gerald R. Ford, who represented (1948-73) the congressional district that included the city. Inc. village, 1838; city, 1850. Pop. (1992 est.) city, 192,008; Grand Rapids-Muskegon-Holland MSA, 952,154.
To cite this page:city, capital of Arkansas, U.S., seat of Pulaski County, on the Arkansas River in the foothills of the Ouachita Mountains in the central part of the state. Bernard de la Harpe, a Frenchman exploring the Arkansas River in 1722, saw on the riverbank two conspicuous rock formations, which he named La Petite Roche and La Grande Roche. Near the smaller rock was a Quapaw Indian settlement, which La Harpe made his trading post. The "little rock" later became the abutment for a railway bridge. The "big rock," 2 mi (3 km) further upstream, was the site of an army post, and later a hospital for veterans was built there.
In 1812 William Lewis, a trapper, built his home at the "little rock." In 1819 Arkansas became a territory, with its capital at Arkansas Post. The site of Little Rock was surveyed in 1821, and the territorial capital was moved there the same year. The capitol building where the legislature met from 1821 to 1836 is preserved in the Territorial Capitol Restoration, along with a block of buildings of the period, including the Old State House (designed by Gideon Shyrock and the second of Little Rock's three state capitols) and the first printshop of the Arkansas Gazette. Little Rock was strongly anti-Union at the outbreak of the Civil War, and the Federal arsenal was seized by state authorities in 1861. In September 1863 Federal troops under Gen. Frederick Steele occupied the city, and a pro-Union government was set up. (see also Index: American Civil War)
In the 1880s Little Rock became an important transportation centre with the expansion of the railways. Industry in the metropolitan area experienced planned, diversified growth beginning in the 1940s, mainly because of the proximity of raw materials (timber, oil, gas, coal, and bauxite). The city became a river port in 1969 with the opening of a system of locks and dams on the Arkansas River. There are large railroad shops at North Little Rock (q.v.) across the river. Little Rock is the chief market for the surrounding agricultural region. The Arkansas Livestock Showgrounds are centred around the T.H. Barton Coliseum.
In 1957 the city was the focus of world attention over the issue of the right of nine black students to attend Central High School under a gradual desegregation plan adopted by the city school board in accordance with the 1954 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court holding racial segregation unconstitutional. The result was a test of power between the federal and state governments. Gov. Orval E. Faubus ordered state militia to prevent blacks from entering the school, but the state was enjoined from interfering by U.S. Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who sent federal troops to maintain order. Within the next decade desegregation was accomplished in all public schools.
The city's educational institutions include the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (1927; formerly Little Rock University); Philander Smith College (1877); the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (1879); Arkansas Baptist College (1884); and the state schools for the blind and deaf. MacArthur Park surrounds the Arkansas Arts Center and Gen. Douglas MacAurthur's birthplace. Little Rock Air Force Base (1955) is northeast, near Jacksonville. Inc. town, 1831; city, 1836. Pop. (1990) city, 175,795; Little Rock-North Little Rock MSA, 513,117.
To cite this page:city, seat (1833) of Greene county, southwestern Missouri, U.S., near the James River, at the northern edge of the Ozark Highlands, north of the Table Rock Lake area. Settled in 1829, its growth was slow until the period of heavy westward migration, when pioneers were attracted by its location on important land routes. During the American Civil War, the city was held for a few months by Confederate forces after the Battle of Wilson's Creek (Aug. 10, 1861; fought 11 miles [18 km] south) until they were expelled by Federal troops in February 1862. "Wild Bill" Hickok lived in Springfield and scouted for the Federals; he was acquitted there of the murder of Dave Tutt. An extension of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad (1870) resulted in the development of a rival community, North Springfield, which merged with Springfield in 1887.
The city's agricultural-based economy (dairy products, poultry, stockyards) is augmented by light manufacturing (steel products, television sets, paper containers, refrigeration motors, and V-belts) and educational institutions. The latter include Drury College (1873), Southwest Missouri State University (1905), Evangel College (1955), Central Bible College (1922), and Baptist Bible College. The International Headquarters of the Assemblies of God Church is in the city. Inc. 1838. Pop. (1990) city, 140,494; Springfield MSA, 240,593.
To cite this page:city, northern district seat (1852) of Sebastian county, western Arkansas, U.S., on the Arkansas River at the Oklahoma state line. An army fort, established on the site (known as Belle Point to early French explorers) in 1817, was named for General Thomas A. Smith. The town was laid out in 1821, and its growth was sustained with the arrival of the railroad (1876). The U.S. Federal District Court for Western Arkansas was located in Fort Smith and had jurisdiction over the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), which also was a refuge for outlaws. Judge Isaac C. Parker, known as a "hanging judge," successfully carried out the difficult task of enforcing federal law from 1875 to 1896. His courtroom has been restored as part of the Fort Smith National Historic Site. Fort Smith is in the centre of an expanding industrial area (coal and natural-gas fields) and is one of the state's leading manufacturing cities. Westark Community College (1928) is located there. Inc. town, 1842; city, 1851. Pop. (1992 est.) city, 74,291; Fort Smith MSA, 179,528.
To cite this page:city, seat (1839) of Crawford County, western Arkansas, U.S., on the Arkansas River opposite Fort Smith. The site, settled (1818) by Thomas Martin, was later called Phillips Landing (for Thomas Phillips, who bought land rights in 1836). In 1838 it was renamed for U.S. President Martin Van Buren. It developed as a trading post and "fitting-out" point for settlers moving to the West; after 1873 it became a railroad junction point for river traffic. Natural gas, discovered in the 1900s, attracted smelters and glass factories. Parts of the Ozark National Forest lie to the north, and lumbering was once significant. Economic activities now focus mainly on food processing and shipping vegetables, especially spinach. Cyrus Adler, a Jewish educator, was born in Van Buren, which was also the home of the humorist Bob Burns, who invented the musical instrument known as the "bazooka." Inc. 1842. Pop. (1990) 14,979.
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