Delivered from Obscurity

In 1830, a rapidly growing settlement on the banks of the Mississippi River shipped more cotton than any other port in the region and was described as "the great steamboat depot of West Tennessee." It wasn't Memphis.

Like planets, cities have a gravitational pull. As a city grows, its gravity becomes stronger and it attracts people and economic activity. The more it attracts, the larger it grows. The larger it grows, the more it attracts.

A metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is the region that has fallen under the gravitational influence of the core city. The Memphis MSA spans nine counties in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi; these counties contain dozens of small, independent towns and municipalities, but their futures and fortunes are inextricably tied to Memphis.

After a city achieves a certain mass, it seems inevitable that it will become the core of an MSA. But before then, that role is up for grabs. Was it inevitable that, of all the settlements in the area, Memphis would be the one to achieve critical mass? Why is a town like Randolph, Tennessee, in the Memphis metropolitan area, rather than Memphis being in the Randolph metropolitan area? The answer is not so obvious.

A good place to start is geography. Did geography alone make Memphis the best candidate to become the dominant commercial center in the region? No. Imagine it's 1830, and you're given the task of choosing where in the  Mid-South to place a city. Before the urban geography was settled, the dominant industry was agriculture, so the most promising location would be one with favorable conditions for trading, warehousing, and shipping agricultural commodities. You would eliminate the cities without access to the Mississippi River. The river is/was prone to changing courses, so of the cities on the Mississippi, you would eliminate the ones not located on a deepwater channel where the river's course is fixed. Finally, the river is extremely prone to flooding, which makes storing commodities risky, so you eliminate the cities not on high ground. Memphis, high above a deepwater channel in the Mississippi on the Fourth Chickasaw Bluff, is still in the running. But Memphis is not unique in its geographic advantages.

You might consider planting your city near Randolph, Tennessee. Similar to Memphis, Randolph has a flood-safe location on the Second Chickasaw Bluff above the Mississippi River. The river runs deep at Randolph, which made it unlikely to change course. Randolph even had a slight edge: the city sat at the confluence of the Mississippi and a tributary, the Hatchie, navigable 70 miles inland. Memphis' tributary, the Wolf, was only navigable 10 miles inland.

An observer in 1830 might bet on Randolph. Not only did the city have similar, perhaps better, geographical advantages, but Memphis was crippled by repeated disease outbreaks. In 1830, Memphis had a population of 663. Randolph had a population of about 1,000. Randolph was a more important shipping center than Memphis and shipped more cotton.

But we know how this story ends. So what saved Memphis?

The Post Office. In 1829, near the peak of Randolph's commercial success, the postal service delivered a crippling blow to the fledgling regional capital: the main postal route was placed through Memphis, the sickly city to the South, rather than Randolph. The route connected Memphis and Nashville and brought mail thrice weekly. Randolph, with its once weekly delivery, instantly became more remote than Memphis. Mail, the only facilitator of long distance communication and economic transactions, was the lifeblood of the early 1800s economy, and the improvement in infrastructure that accompanied the development of the postal route drove people and activity through the city. Railroads soon followed. Memphis' gravity grew stronger, and was soon strong enough to attract economic activity away from Randolph. Randolph fell into Memphis' sphere.

This narrative glosses over a few facts about Randolph's decline. Shortly after the town was founded in 1823, a faulty land title cast doubt over the ownership of the land the town was built on. The promise of a canal connecting the Tennessee and Hatchie rivers never materialized. Attempts to attract a railroad failed. And to put the final nail in Randolph's coffin, federal troops burned the town during the Civil War. Twice.

The land title and the burning of the town were exogenous events that severly damaged Randolph's prospects. But other frequently cited factors in Randolph's decline occurred after the establishment of the postal route and may be symptoms rather than additional causes.

In the first decades of the 19th centuy, the region's burgeoning agricultural economy needed a commercial center, and two cities were at the tipping point. The postal route pushed Memphis to critical mass. Gravity did the rest.