Note: This is a continuation of our list of 40 Memphis Quintessentials, in celebration of the 40th anniversary of Memphis magazine. The whole list can be found here.
Dreamstime
Crossroads
Highway 61, Revisited
Immortalized by Bob Dylan in his sixth studio album, Highway 61 follows the Mississippi River from New Orleans to Minnesota. It is known, variously, as the “Blues Highway” or “Great River Road” in honor of its position in American musical heritage. If you want to follow Dylan’s advice and “take everything down to Highway 61” in Memphis, you can catch the famed stretch of road on South 3rd Street, downtown. — Eileen Townsend
Shrunken Head at the Pink Palace
Memphis’ all-purpose city museum, the enigmatically named Pink Palace, is home to one of the weirdest artifacts this side of the river: a (maybe?) real shrunken human head. The head came to the museum in 1940, courtesy of Abe Scharff, a local cleaning-company owner and self-designated world explorer. — Eileen Townsend
Voodoo Village
“Voodoo Village” is the local nickname for the south Memphis home of late folk artist, “Doc” Wash Harris. Harris’ property gained local notoriety after Harris constructed a brightly painted, clapboard church there, which he called “St. Paul’s Spiritual Holy Temple.” For decades, Memphis teens in search of a midnight adventure would drive to Voodoo Village (and harass the artist), but there are currently curatorial efforts to preserve Harris’ art. — Eileen Townsend
Sandra Hill
Jerry's
Jerry’s Sno-Cones
If you’ve never gone to Jerry’s Sno-Cones’ walk-up window on a hot day in mid-July, you have not truly endured a Memphis summer. Located in a former gas station in the Berclair area, the identifiable pink and green one-stop-sno-cone-shop recently expanded their menu to include more substantive food. But it is still all about the sno-cones. — Eileen Townsend
