postcard courtesy vance lauderdale
Dear Vance: What happened to Harbin’s Swimming Pool, a popular attraction in Whitehaven in the 1940s? — S.R., Memphis.
Dear S.R.: I think it’s interesting that you mainly remember the swimming pool, because that was just a small part of the sprawling establishment that J.C. Harbin operated at the corner of Raines and Highway 51 South for most of his life.
First of all, I have to confess that if Harbin had a first and middle name, I never learned them. He made the news a lot, as you’re about to find out, and yet every single article — even his obituary — referred to him only by his initials. I haven’t visited his actual gravesite — it’s on my “to-do” list — but I bet it says J.C. as well.
It doesn’t matter, really, because everyone in Whitehaven (and most of Memphis, too) knew J.C. Harbin. Born in 1895 outside the tiny community of Days, Mississippi (now just a crossing in DeSoto County), Harbin made his way to Memphis in the early 1900s. I presume his parents brought him along with them when they moved here for some reason, but don’t know where they lived or where he went to school. He first made the news here in 1919, when The Commercial Appeal reported that he paid $10 to purchase three acres of land on Raines Road. He opened a small dairy farm there, and started to supply milk to local cafes and restaurants.
The Commercial Appeal eulogized him as a “resort pioneer” but that doesn’t really convey the many accomplishments of J.C. Harbin, or his life with the famous “Dixie Eagle,” does it?
According to newspaper ads, J.C. Harbin’s Dairy offered both pasteurized and clarified milk that, he claimed, was “Safest To Use.” His customers apparently thought so, because his business boomed, and within a few years he had expanded his property to 48 acres, and began to open it up for all sorts of recreational purposes. In 1925, Harbin’s Place (as it was then called) became the scene of the annual Newsboys Picnic, “where 100 lusty-lunged purveyors of the world’s current events held sway for the entire day,” enjoying games, races, and “country-style chicken.” These were the kids who stood on the street corners yelling, “Read all about it — get your paper here!” Surely you’ve seen them in movies.
In 1926, the winner of many of the races that year was somebody well-known to Memphians of a certain age: “Twenty prizes were distributed to the victors of the various contests, with Tony Cassata, otherwise known as ‘Monk,’ having the distinction of carrying off the rewards of the day.” Lots of readers remember Monk — I’ve written about him before — but it came as a surprise that he had already earned that distinctive nickname when he was a boy.
postcard courtesy vance lauderdale
The following year, Harbin added the attraction you remember, S.R. — what the newspapers described as “the gigantic swimming pool.” Soon to follow was a barbecue restaurant and a row of handsome tourist cottages, which Harbin is proudly showing off on the old postcard you see here. Not only did they offer travelers “fine food, Beautyrest mattresses, swimming pool, baths, and steam & gas heat,” I noticed each building contained a built-in garage — a rather nice touch, if you ask me.
One year, Harbin hosted the Tri-State Championship Motorcycle Races. According to news accounts, this event pitted “outstanding riders from throughout the territory,” and a special highlight was the appearance of “two Indian motorcycles to be entered by the Memphis Motorcycle Company.”
Harbin’s wife, Emma, helped run the place, but I wonder how many visitors realized that the woman behind the barbecue counter was a rather famous aviatrix known as the “Dixie Eagle”? Newspaper clippings from the early 1930s reveal that Emma Harbin was one of the first women in the country to attend flying school and earn a commercial pilot’s license. “She soon became one of the best-known women stunt fliers in the South,” reported the CA, “with her repertoire of single, double, and triple spins, balloon bursting, ribbon cutting, and dizzy aeronautical feats.” What’s more, “she received widespread publicity when she took up deaf people who believed flying would aid their hearing.”
But what’s this about balloon bursting? Well, to showcase her aeronautical skills, in 1931 she took part in a show at the old Memphis Municipal Airport, where people released three small balloons, and “each flier would then dive at them and burst all three with their propellers within two minutes.” The winner would receive a “new flying helmet and a season pass to Harbin’s Pool.” Not much of a prize, if you ask me, if Emma Harbin was the winner.
She became so well-known that she contributed a regular aviation column to The Commercial Appeal, talking about upcoming events and advances in airplane design. She also competed in other, rather bizarre stunts around town — many of them designed to promote her own establishment, I suppose. For example, in 1928, she competed in a contest “in an attempt to break the world’s record of 50 hours for tank swimming.” This sounds dreadful to me. The rules stipulated that “the contestant must remain in six feet or more of water all the time, and is not permitted to touch the sides of the pool. The swimmer can take nourishment at any time,” but nobody mentions how anyone was supposed to go to the bathroom — while treading water for more than two days!
Look, I know you want to know if she broke that world’s record, but I could turn up no other mention of this peculiar event. This was very frustrating, because I’d like to find out more about the “Dixie Eagle,” but I ran into the all-too-common sexism of the day: Even the newspapers she worked for began to refer to her as “Mrs. J.C. Harbin,” which drives historians crazy, because searches for her name mainly turn up stories about her husband. For that matter, despite all her own accomplishments, the only photo I found was a grainy image on microfilm, too small and fuzzy to share with you here.
So, let’s get back to Harbin’s Place, where the “Dixie Eagle” apparently lost interest in serving barbecue lunches to newsboys, left her husband and Memphis behind, and eventually remarried. J.C. continued to run his establishment, which became the scene of all sorts of unusual events that you wouldn’t normally associate with a dairy. That was his main business, you may remember. One year, Harbin hosted the Tri-State Championship Motorcycle Races. According to news accounts, this event pitted “outstanding riders from throughout the territory,” and a special highlight was the appearance of “two Indian motorcycles to be entered by the Memphis Motorcycle Company.” Indian was a big-name American brand, you see, competing in those days with Harley-Davidson.
Anybody driving down Highway 51 could turn onto Raines and find swimming, ice cream, barbecue, company picnics, tourist cottages, and motorcycle races. Even so, Hardin couldn’t compete with an entrepreneur by the name of Kemmons Wilson. When Holiday Inns opened here in the early 1950s, with their spacious, clean rooms and modern restaurants, travelers tended to drive past Harbin’s tiny cottages. Even the pool lost its allure when places closer to Memphis opened and expanded (and even added sand “beaches”) such as Clearpool and Rainbow Lake.
postcard courtesy vance lauderdale
Harbin decided to start over, with a bold new venture. In 1955, at age 60, he shut down everything except the barbecue joint, cleared the property, and opened a modern new shopping center called — what do you think? — Harbin Center. The half-million-dollar complex, located across the street from Whitehaven Plaza, quickly became a success, luring such tenants as a By-Ryt grocery, Gridiron restaurant, beauty salon, laundromat, and a dozen other businesses. Although this doesn’t seem very innovative today, a Memphis Press-Scimitar article praised the shopping center’s modern features, such as “ample off-street parking spaces in front of the stores, and a large flood-lighted parking lot on the south side of the supermarket.”
My goodness, that man stayed busy. Over his long lifetime he became president of the Tourist Cottage Operators of Tennessee, opened a trailer/RV park, served as an official with the Masons and Shriners (he was Master of the Whitehaven Lodge), took an active role in Whitehaven United Methodist Church, and was involved in many civic ventures in Whitehaven. He finally closed his barbecue restaurant, but kept active with his shopping center until his death in 1985, at the age of 90. The Commercial Appeal eulogized him as a “resort pioneer” but that doesn’t really convey the many accomplishments of J.C. Harbin, or his life with the famous “Dixie Eagle,” does it?
Got a question for Vance?
Email: askvance@memphismagazine.com
Mail: Vance Lauderdale, Memphis magazine, P.O. Box 1738, Memphis, TN 38101