Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the county seat of Shelby County, in the southwesternmost part of the state, and is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-most populous city in Tennessee after Nashville.
The F. W. Woolworth Company was a retail company and one of the pioneers of the five-and-dime store. It was among the most successful American and international five-and-dime businesses, setting trends and creating the modern retail model that stores follow worldwide today.
Cargill, Incorporated is an American multinational food corporation based in Minnetonka, Minnesota, and incorporated in Wilmington, Delaware. Founded in 1865 by William Wallace Cargill, it is the largest privately held company in the United States in terms of revenue.
Clarence Saunders was an American grocer who first developed the modern retail sales model of self service. His ideas have had a massive influence on the development of the modern supermarket. Saunders worked for most of his life trying to develop a truly automated store, developing Piggly Wiggly, Keedoozle, and Foodelectric store concepts.
Speedway Motorsports, LLC is an American company that owns and manages auto racing facilities that host races sanctioned by NASCAR, NHRA, World of Outlaws and other racing series. The company was founded by Bruton Smith and has its headquarters at Charlotte Motor Speedway, in Concord, North Carolina, just north of Charlotte. Speedway Motorsports owns nine racing facilities with a combined seating capacity of approximately 885,000. In addition to operating racetracks, Speedway Motorsports owns Performance Racing Network (PRN), U.S. Legend Cars International, and co-owns Motorsports Authentics.
A. Schwab Dry Goods Store is the sole remaining original business on Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee.
Associated Wholesale Grocers, Inc. (AWG) is the United States's largest cooperative food wholesaler to independently owned supermarkets and grocery stores. It serves more than 4,000 locations in 36 states and from 8 full-line wholesale divisions. The consolidated run-rate sales for AWG is close to $10 billion. In addition to its cooperative wholesale operations, the company also operates subsidiary companies which provide certain real estate and supermarket development services, digital marketing services, and is a wholesale supply provider of health and beauty care, general merchandise, specialty/international foods and pharmaceutical supplies. It was founded in 1924 as Associated Grocers of Kansas City and was based in Kansas City, Missouri before moving to Kansas City, Kansas. Associated Wholesale Grocers distributes four private-label brands of grocery products, Best Choice, Clearly Organic, Always Save, and Superior Selections along with IGA.
Fred's Inc. was a retail store chain headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, operating in 15 states in the southeastern United States. As of June, 2019 Fred's operated 396 locations, of which 155 were pharmacies, and the remainder discount general merchandise stores. In July 2019 Fred's announced 129 pending store closures, following which it would have 80 retail stores and 166 pharmacies remaining. This followed earlier store closing announcements in April and June 2019.
The five Ralli brothers, Zannis a.k.a. John (1785–1859), Augustus (1792–1878), Pandia a.k.a. Zeus (1793–1865), Toumazis (1799–1858), and Eustratios (1800–84), founded Ralli Brothers, perhaps the most successful expatriate Greek merchant business of the Victorian era.
Located on the Mississippi River, the metropolitan area of Memphis is one of the largest in the Southeastern United States, ranking 42nd in the United States according to the 2010 census. The city has historically been one of the largest shipping hubs in the Mid-South, dating back to the Civil War, when the port was one of the largest on the Mississippi River and served as a shipping hub for the Confederacy.
Tourism in Memphis includes the points of interest in Memphis, Tennessee such as museums, fine art galleries, and parks, as well as Graceland the Beale Street entertainment district, and sporting events.
Al Bell is an American record producer, songwriter, and record executive. He is best known as having been an executive and co-owner of Stax Records with Jim Stewart based in Memphis, Tennessee, during the latter half of the label's 19-year existence.
CSS Industries, Inc., was founded in 1923, as City Stores Company. Its headquarters is at 1845 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with showrooms in New York City, Memphis, Tennessee, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Hong Kong. The company designs, manufactures, and distributes seasonal and everyday greeting cards and novelties.
The Dixie Greyhound Lines, a highway-coach carrier, was a Greyhound regional operating company, based in Memphis, Tennessee, USA, from 1930 until 1954, when it became merged into the Southeastern Greyhound Lines, a neighboring operating company.
The Cargill family, also known as the Cargill-MacMillan family, refers to the multi-generational descendants of the American business executive William Wallace Cargill and his son-in-law John H. MacMillan Sr. The Cargill-MacMillan family is the fourth-wealthiest family in America. Descendants of Cargill and MacMillan have owned common equity in the "agribusiness giant" Cargill Inc, one of the largest privately owned corporations in the United States, for over 140 years. William Cargill founded the Cargill company as an Iowa grain storage business in 1865, during the post–Civil War period, and was its CEO for almost 40 years. Following the death of William Cargill in 1909, his son-in-law John MacMillan steered the company out of a debt crisis and into stability. The two branches of the family—the MacMillans and the Cargills—continue to be represented on the board of directors of Cargill Incorporated. The most recent family members appointed to the board are fifth generation.
The Wilks Brooks House, is a home in Memphis, Tennessee, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The house was built by Wilks Brooks and his fifteen-year-old son Joseph Brooks; construction started in October 1834 and ended in 1835.
The International Port of Memphis is an active port in Memphis, Tennessee, United States. It is mainly located on President's Island, which is a peninsula. However, it also extends between miles 725 and 740 on both the Tennessee and Arkansas sides of the Mississippi River. It is the second largest inland port on the shallow draft portion of the Mississippi River, and the fifth largest inland port in the United States. It has the ability to connect to sea via the Mississippi River, by rail using any of the five Class 1 railroads in the city, by road via I-40 or I-55, and by air using FedEx.
Daseke, Inc. ( DASS-kee; is the biggest owner and a leading consolidator of flatbed and specialized transportation in North America, comprising 16 operating companies with over 5,200 trucks and over 11,000 flatbed and specialized trailers.
The Seam is an American software company that designs and operates platforms for commodities trading, particularly in cotton. It was launched in December 2000 by four cotton companies and is based in Memphis, Tennessee. Though specializing in cotton trading, its platforms have added other commodities such as dairy and peanuts over time.
Napoleon Hill (1830–1909) was an American businessman of Memphis, Tennessee, tagged as "the merchant prince of Memphis" by his contemporaries. He first inherited wealth from his father, made more in the California Gold Rush, and then moved to Memphis, where he became a leading businessman and investor. Hill was the second of eleven children of Duncan Hill, a physician and plantation owner, and Olivia L. Bill. Duncan Hill died in 1844, leaving his mother the Marshall County, Mississippi plantation, worth $40,000 at the time. She remarried to Josiah Deloach in 1848 and she and the children continued to live on the plantation. At age sixteen Hill left home and worked as a store clerk for a time, but left Tennessee for the 1849 California Gold Rush. Successful in California, he returned to Tennessee and by 1857 was living in Memphis, where he built a wholesale grocery business and traded in cotton on commission just before the American Civil War.
