Orange Mound

The neighborhood's story starts as a land deal. John Deaderick bought about 5,000 acres in the 1820s and built his house here. In 1890 developer Elzey Eugene Meachem bought land from the Deaderick family and began selling lots to Black buyers for under $100, mostly narrow shotgun houses. Memphis annexed the community in 1919, and in the 1970s it was promoted as the largest concentration of Black residents in the country outside Harlem. The claim that it was the first neighborhood developed by African Americans is often made but still lacks a firm citation.

What the plaque says

Orange Mound Orange Mound, developed as a Negro subdivision at the turn of the century, was formerly a 5000 acre plantation owned by John George Deaderick. Bounded by the Southern Railway on the north, Airways on the west, Park on the south, and Goodwyn on the east. Memphis' oldest and best known African-American community received its name from the rows of mock orange shrubs in the side yard of the Deaderick home.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Stax Museum of American Soul Music — 3.1 mi
  A rebuilt Stax studio on the site of the old Capitol Theatre, with a replica of the sloped-floor Studio A, Isaac Hayes's Cadillac and the story of an integrated soul label.
• Elmwood Cemetery — 3.2 mi
  Memphis's oldest active cemetery, a rural garden cemetery of about 1,500 trees opened in 1852, with Black civic leaders, yellow fever victims and the city's whole history in its lots.
• Sun Studio — 4.1 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 — 4.8 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.

More markers nearby

• Mt. Pisgah C.M.E. Church — steps away
• Mt. Moriah Baptist Church — 0.3 mi
• Thomas F. Cassels — 2.1 mi
• Zion Cemetery — 2.1 mi