Earlier this year, producer Chris Berube went to Memphis, Tennessee for a story about the Memphis Pyramid (check that out here!) While in town, Chris also had the chance to spend a day with Jimmy Ogle, the former historian for Shelby County.
Ogle is a repository for Memphis history, and has done pretty much every interesting job in the city. He was manager of the Mud Island attraction park and the local Smithsonian Museum, he was a clock operator for the Memphis Grizzlies NBA team, he managed a riverboat company, lead dozens of city walking tours, and finally, he served as Duckmaster at the historic Peabody Hotel (it’s what it sounds like). Ogle is so closely tied to Memphis, he has his own Brass Note on the Memphis Walk of Fame.
In this episode, Chris and Jimmy set out to uncover some of the most notable, 99PI-friendly sites in Bluff City, including stops at the city’s historic manhole covers and street signs, a history lesson on Beale Street, the new home for a very old-looking statue, and a tour of an immersive experience moving into the city’s historic River Museum.
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I decided to trying querying OpenStreetMap to determine what streets might begin with “Month day” which might be candidates for date names. This query can fetch the matching roads and walkways (very slow to load).
https://overpass-ultra.us/#m=4.45/40.5550/-95.2971&q=PQKgUAKgFglgzgAngghgOwQUwB4oLYAOANpggPIBumATgSnIgI4CuNAngHSTVtIAuCAPbMBAI14FqmBjDQBzBHyikASswyiRfQRhSjBVAIRgQwMAG1R+7AC4A3nauDsAXxcBdANxgAFGADuKGzmsHJQgWzu5gBEaPiY0QB+0QB6PgBS6MwoPAA+AGKYotTZeQCyOQDGULkAgpIwRLkVbLnp6phtzESttcxyzHB8uQDKmAR8mHiiNLlkldoz1LkAcgZTS7kAIpiVGzQAlAg+SqQHAPw+5gAMALQAnO4A1AUw1EOjuzoAJrnQbwVhMt8jAAGbDEFUUYwbCfKhoXIAURgYWGK1knQgmARiJIUIg-kwTQJ2L4B2iXjAB28wgEezQk2oniAA
The query successfully finds November 6th Street in Memphis, TN as well as another full date street:
* March 9 1764 in Bolivia, NC, which seems to be a reference to the founding date of Brunswick County, NC https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/996171559
It also turns up a few other streets that are at least month + day, some of which imply specific year events:
* October 28th Street in Rosita, TX https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/545271523
* July Fourth Road in Midland, TX https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/776357260
* December 25th Lane in Santa Claus, IN https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/17545335
* A walkway: May 4 Memorial in Kent, OH – The day in 1974 of the Kent State shootings https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/234645241
* A walkway: September 11 Memorial Walkway of Southern Illinois in Belleville, IL – a reference to the date in 2001 https://openstreetmap.org/way/1105011449