North Memphis Driving Park

Memphis's Driving Park is tied to two famous harness horses, though not to the record usually attached to them. Dan Patch set his 1:56 and 1:56 1/4 miles at Memphis in 1903 and 1904; his official best, 1:55 1/4, came at Lexington, Kentucky, on October 7, 1905. Lou Dillon, owned by C. K. G. Billings, trotted a 1:58 1/2 mile at Memphis on October 24, 1903. At the 1904 Gold Cup, accounts say a rival doped her; she was not at fault.

What the plaque says

North Memphis Driving Park The southwest corner of this mile harness track was here; its long axis ran northeastward. It was developed mainly by C.K.G. Billings. Here Ed Geers brought out many famous horses. Here also, Dan Patch made his record of 1:55¼, and here occurred the races for the Memphis Gold Cup. The most famous were between Lou Dillon and Major Delmar in 1903 and 1904.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sun Studio — 2.5 mi
  The small Union Avenue room where Sam Phillips recorded Rocket 88, Howlin' Wolf, Elvis Presley and the Million Dollar Quartet, now a National Historic Landmark.
• Beale Street — 2.6 mi
  The street that became the center of Black Memphis after the Civil War, home to Church's Park, W. C. Handy, Ida B. Wells and the blues, now a National Historic Landmark district.
• National Civil Rights Museum — 3.1 mi
  The Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr. was killed on April 4, 1968, kept as a museum of the civil rights movement from the nineteenth century to today.
• 1866 Memphis Massacre Marker at Army Park — 3.2 mi
  A privately funded NAACP marker in a small downtown park, placed in 2016, that names the May 1866 attack on Black South Memphis as a massacre.

More markers nearby

• Manassas High School / The Cora P. Taylor Auditorium — 0.3 mi
• Isaac Hayes — 0.3 mi
• Burkle Estate — 0.9 mi
• William Herbert Brewster, Sr. — 1.1 mi