County compiles landmarks list
Historical Commission plans giant map of local historic sites
An antique wooden pew displayed on a lower floor of Bartlett United Methodist Church is the only item saved from a fire in 1923 that destroyed the church’s 19th century sanctuary at Court Street and Stage Road.
There are scratches in the wood from years of seating church members, but the pew escaped the blaze without damage.
After the f ire, the church sold the land for about $600, was given another $1,000 as a gift and used the funds to rebuild at Stage Road and Shelby Street in 1924. That chapel, with white pillars and old stained glass windows, is now used for Sunday contemporary services.
“I’ve always loved this chapel,” said Marcia Kerl, communications secretary for the church, which added on a larger sanctuary in 2002. “We have been on this corner a long time.”
The Bartlett church will likely be included on a list of historic sites being compiled by the Shelby County Historical Commission. As part of its Historical Landmark Project, the commission is asking local municipalities and area residents to submit the names, locations and a brief history of interesting historic sites in Shelby County in an effort to create a large database and GIS map that will eventually be published online.
Another major part of the project is to find historic sites that are near Memphis’ Wolf River Greenway, a paved, multiuse trail that eventually will extend about 30 miles and connect neighborhoods from Downtown to Germantown and Collierville. The commission hopes to put markers on the trail that provide information about nearby historic sites.
“What we’re trying to do is just locate places along the proposed path that people could stop and look at,” said John McNary, with the historical commission.
For the project, the commission started with the county’s suburban areas and will eventually collect data from Memphis, said Matt Meador, chairman of the commission’s heritage board. All sites published on the map will be validated.
The commission is interested in sites that are at least 50 years old. They do not have to be well-known landmarks.
Meador said anyone interested in proposing a site can send the information to believehistory@gmail. com, preferably by Friday.
In Bartlett, city officials posted information about the project at cityofbartlett.org and put surveys in the public library. So far, there hasn’t been a large amount of feedback, but Bartlett United Methodist was one recommendation, said Todd Graves, the city’s GIS manager.
Graves said city leaders plan to make sure the commission is aware of several historic Bartlett sites.