Cotton and Tennessee History

Today we worked on school work and laundry in the morning so we could take a break and head downtown to see the Memphis Cotton Exchange Museum.

This large chalkboard's numbers had to be updated daily in the old days.

The bale behind the family is small by today's standards. They are now pressed into an 8' X 8' X 16' bale and covered with special tarps.

The museum was fun and educational. We learned how the industry really is what established Memphis as a city in the beginning. We got to see what the cotton growing process is like. We got to see how the harvesting equipment has changed over the years and how the exchange itself has changed. The museum is housed in a building built in the 1920's that the exchange moved into from it's original location in one of four original squares when the city was established. We learned how the exchange used to have people writing all the prices on chalk boards until the 70's when they started using computers. We learned how the industry influenced so many things including the blues music scene. I did a terrible job taking pictures while we were there and we didn't have time to go visit the original building either.

After the cotton exchange, we went to the Pink Palace Museum because it was on our passport list for our reciprocal museum pass and so we had free admission. Brock had some meetings to conduct so we needed to get to the location and get him into a quiet spot so he could do that while we explored the museum. (The bummer thing was that even though we were directed to a little place with tables for Brock to make his call, the front desk neglected to mention that there is no cell service inside the buildings.) :O(  Brock had to email his first meeting participants and explain that he had no service. There WAS free wifi though. He could have gone outside, but it was over 80 degrees out there and a little humid so not fun to sit out there for the meeting.

The rest of us enjoyed the very eclectic museum which covered a lot of Tennessee history. One floor was science related. The second floor was history exhibits and then the Pink Palace mansion was also available to check out.

That's one big python skeleton!

Rattlesnake - I'd never seen how their jaw worked before. Isn't it weird?

Kudu skull and antlers
 (a type of antelope found in Africa.)

An actual narwhal tooth, at one time worth it's weight in gold.

Loved this. You really can't get perspective from the picture, but it's a really tiny petite little hummingbird skeleton in the same plexiglass display as an ostrich.

There were a lot of skeletons on display including several little monkey ones with scary-looking little sharp teeth. Skeletons are just cool to look at it. It's just not something that you see all the time.

There was an animatronic t-rex that was a little annoying because it roared with such frequency.

 There was a large rock and mineral display with quite a few really beautiful and unique specimens.

I'd never seen anything like this fuzzy-looking beauty.

Spencer so wished that he'd found this quartz crystal which was, by the way, found in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Next we moved to the history exhibits. There was soo much to see there that I felt like we kind of raced through. There were some first American type artifacts including several really cool shaped pottery bowls, pitchers and jars. Then we moved into some well done displays like full-size dioramas of life in the 1800-1900's here in Tennessee. Some focused on costumes. There was some interesting medical history stuff and the kids really got into a Civil War exhibit that had a hands on section where they could pick up and touch a Civil War era pistol and musket, bayonet, and several other items that a soldier would've had in his possession. Brighton was also fascinated with a deck of period playing cards.

I'd never seen anything like the matchlock punt or duck gun on the top. It had to be about 8 feet long.  The description said it would be used on the prow of a small boat called a punt and when fired into a flock of ducks or geese, anywhere from 10-40 birds could be killed.

Elvis' Army Uniform on loan from Graceland

A real shrunken head, with recipe

Huge steering wheel from a paddlewheeler

Clarence Saunders, who was the founder of Piggly Wiggly, the first self-service grocery, started building his 36,500 square foot mansion in 1922. A year later, he was bankrupt (one sign said that he "lost an epic Stock Exchange battle"). Developers who bought the grounds donated it to the City of Memphis for use as a museum. Saunders had named his mansion Cla-Le-Clare, after his children, Clay, Lee and Amy Clare. A Memphis reporter gave it the name the Pink Palace and it stuck. The mansion cost Saunders 1.2 million dollars in 1922, 10 times that in today's dollars, and it was never completed and he never got to live there.

This was a replica of the first Piggly Wiggly. It was cool to go in and walk the aisles. It was fully stocked and everything was priced. There were wicker baskets at the front that shoppers could borrow to fill up with goods. The kids thought it was very cool that they recognized several of the brands.

Brock was on a call in the car and we joined him when the museum closed at 5. He finished up about 5:25 and we drove back to the rv park so he could hop on another call by 6. For some reason, there was a high amount of energy in a couple of little bodies so I offered to take them down to the pool for awhile. Spencer, Skylar and Bryn took me up on it. Bri decided to stay in the trailer and watch videos on his iPod. :o0

I forgot to take the camera to the pool, but try to picture what was so fun. They were the only ones in the pool so they were in their own little world playing an imaginary game. Skylar was the "king of the sea". Picture him with his floatie wings on and his blue tinted goggles all cockeyed and pushing out one ear and squinting one eye. Bryn was a beautiful mermaid name Jul, short for Julie. Spencer was a human who meets and befriends Jul, thinking she's human too, until he discovers she has a tail. Then he rescues her from a fisherman's net. Sky, the King, threatens to call in the sharks. In between scenes, Sky would be Sky wanting to rescue every drowning bug in the pool. LOL It was very entertaining for me to watch.

We came to the trailer and it was time to dinner and bedtime yet again.