MEMPHIS — A 32-story, glass-and-steel pyramid is not exactly something you’d expect to see sitting on the edge of the Mississippi River in the heart of a mid-sized Southern city. But it’s been a local landmark here for more than two decades.
Built in 1991 and formerly the home of the NBA’s Memphis Grizzlies, the Pyramid has been empty since 2004. In late April of this year, though, it reopened as a massive retail complex operated by Bass Pro Shops, a nationwide outdoors outfitter.
The 535,000-square-foot space is the newest and largest of Bass Pro’s 70 stores. Besides endless aisles of hunting, fishing, and other outdoors gear, the building also includes a 103-room hotel, an underwater-themed bowling alley, a 600,000-gallon aquarium, a glass-floored observation deck with a killer view, and the tallest freestanding elevator in the country.
Bass Pro at the Pyramid might be the newest tourist attraction in town, but it’s far from the only one. Tops on most visitors’ must-see list would probably be Graceland, former home of Elvis Presley and the centerpiece of a merchandising empire that rakes in more than $30 million a year. Since the 11-acre estate opened for tours in 1982, more than 20 million visitors have wandered through the house and grounds. A welcome recent addition for many is the interactive iPad tour narrated by actor and Elvis fan John Stamos, which debuted last year.
Then there’s downtown Memphis, anchored by the famous Beale Street, where music legends like Louis Armstrong, Muddy Waters, and B.B. King once played, helping to create the musical style that came to be known as “Memphis blues.” Today the three-block entertainment district is packed with music clubs, restaurants, and shops, and nearly every weekend there’s a festival or outdoor concert in the area. And you can always drop in at B.B. King’s Blues Club, Jerry Lee Lewis’ Café & Honky Tonk, or the Memphis Rock ’n’ Soul museum.
Not far from Beale Street is Sun Studio, where visitors can walk through the studios where Elvis, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, and other musical icons once recorded their songs. Those same studios are still used today by the likes of U2, John Mellencamp, and Jakob Dylan.
Other musical attractions due to open in town later this year: the Memphis Music Hall of Fame and the Blues Hall of Fame.
On a much more sobering note, a few blocks from Beale Street is the infamous Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King, Jr., was shot and killed in 1968. The motel is now part of the National Civil Rights Museum, where films, displays, and interactive exhibits explore slavery, Jim Crow laws, and the often violent history of the civil rights movement.
The balcony where King died outside the motel’s Room 306 is marked by a white wreath, and across the street, the former rooming house where King’s killer, James Earl Ray, stayed is also part of the museum. Visitors can have the uneasy experience of looking out the same second-floor bathroom window where Ray aimed his rifle and fired the fatal shot.
Over at the venerable Peabody Hotel, you don’t have to be a guest to take in one of the more unusual daily spectacles you’re likely to see anywhere: a line of ducks parading along a red carpet through the lobby. Precisely at 11 a.m. each day, Duckmaster Anthony Petrina leads five Mallards out of an elevator and through the lobby to a fountain, where they climb in and spend the rest of the day swimming around. Then at 5 p.m., the process is reversed and the ducks are marched back to the elevator that returns them to their “Duck Palace” on the hotel roof.
While Memphis is the obvious focal point of any visit to West Tennessee, there are a number of other places worth a stop as well. Here are a few:
A truly amazing attraction near Union City is the $100 million Discovery Park of America, a sprawling interactive museum and entertainment complex financed entirely by a foundation run by the local family that founded Kirkland’s, a national chain of home décor stores. Park highlights include an earthquake simulator, a 60-foot human body slide, dinosaur fossils, military equipment, and dozens of hands-on exhibits for both children and adults. Unfortunately, the park is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, but if the state ever completes its stalled highway projects in the area, hotels, restaurants, and a big increase in park patrons would follow, according to Jim Rippy, the facility’s CEO.
You don’t have to be a history buff to appreciate Shiloh National Military Park near Savannah, Tenn. Site of one of the first major battles of the Civil War, which more than 100,000 troops took part in, the park offers exhibits, films, and ranger-led tours. There is also a narrated 10-mile driving tour with stops at 14 key sites. A cemetery in the park contains the graves of nearly 4,000 soldiers.
Yes, there really was a Casey Jones, and the legendary railroad engineer’s life — and heroic death in 1900 — is celebrated at Casey Jones Village in Jackson. And if you happen to be there on the right night of the week, you can take in a free bluegrass performance by the Jackson Area Plectral Society.
Among the wildly diverse exhibits at the West Tennessee Delta Heritage Center in Brownsville is the Tina Turner Museum, housed in the tiny, one-room schoolhouse that the singer attended back in the 1940s. The Heritage Center is one of the stops along the newly launched “Americana Music Triangle,” a five-state, 1,500-mile stretch of highway that runs from New Orleans to Memphis to Nashville and includes attractions that helped create and define nine separate genres of music.
For information, call 800-462-8366, or visit tnvacation.com/west/ or americanamusictriangle.com
First Published June 14, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
