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Home Tennessee Shelby County Memphis Historical Markers Yellow Fever Monument

Yellow Fever Monument

Riverside Drive, Memphis, TN , USA

Latitude & Longitude: 35° 7' 19.158132", -90° 1' 46.466544"
  Tennessee TN State Historical Marker
Tennessee State
Historical Marker

 
No Man's Land
In Four Public Lots Known Collectively As “No Man's Land” Lie The Remains Of At Least 1400
Victims Of The Great Yellow Fever Epidemics Of 1873, 1878,And 1879. Memphis Lost Over
8500 Citizens To The Disease And 2500 Of These Rest In Elmwood.
At the peak of these outbreaks, Elmwood was required to handle over fifty burials a day.
Due to the sickness and labor shortages many bodies were piled above ground waiting burial.
Persons from all levels of society were interred in trenches in an area formerly reserved
for paupers and unknowns.
By 1878, half of Memphis' 50,000 citizens fled the city. Yellow fever struck ninety percent
of the remaining population; killing 5100. The epidemic so decimated its population that
Memphis became bankrupt in 1879, and the city charter was surrendered to the State,
the state legislature created the Taxing District of Shelby County to serve as the
agent of the State of Tennessee.
In commemoratiion of all forgotten victims who perished in he epidemics.
By Robert Kaplan, Md, Christine Mroz, Md and Jim D. Taylor, May 1985

Last updated: 2/14/2015 15:17:00
 
   
 
 
Yellow Fever Monument Historical Marker Location Map, Memphis, Tennessee Map