Raleigh

Raleigh's story is mostly about what came after the county seat left. When the county courts moved to Memphis in 1866, the stone courthouse was dismantled and its stone went into the courthouse at Bartlett, which incorporated that same year. The town stood on one of the highest bluffs above the Wolf River. It gave up its charter in 1912, and Memphis annexed it on January 1, 1973. Raleigh Springs Mall, opened in 1971, became its commercial center, and the city bought it in 2016 for a civic center. Raleigh Cemetery, begun in the 1840s, holds Isaac Rawlings.

What the plaque says

Raleigh First known as Sanderlin's Bluff, the town of Raleigh was renamed by Joseph Graham, the first Circuit Court Clerk, for his North Carolina hometown. It was the county seat of Shelby County from 1824 to 1866, and the courthouse stood 200 ft. southwest of here. Keelboats and stern-wheelers plied the Wolf River, transporting freight and passengers to and from Raleigh in the 1830s. Raleigh's economic and political fortunes faded as Memphis' rose, and the town surrendered its charter in 1912.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sun Studio — 8.0 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.
• Elmwood Cemetery — 8.3 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.
• Beale Street — 8.6 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.
• Stax Museum of American Soul Music — 8.7 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.

More markers nearby

• Nashoba — 3.8 mi
• St. Mary's Episcopal School — 5.3 mi
• Rhodes College — 5.4 mi
• The University of Memphis — 5.8 mi