photograph by michael finger
Editor’s Note: A city is to be shared. Roughly a million people live in what we might call “Greater Memphis,” a hub that stretches east to Germantown and Collierville, and even across state borders (and a mighty river) if we include West Memphis and Southaven. But here’s the charm of a city as distinctive as Memphis, Tennessee: It’s a different home for every one of us. There are residents of Midtown who feel like they need to pack a suitcase if they travel east of Highland. Likewise, some East Memphians schedule trips Downtown like a special event. What makes Memphis home for you? If you had to identify one place or thing that makes the Bluff City singular, what would it be?
We asked eight writers to define “My Memphis” in a single essay. While it’s impossible to answer such a challenge on a single page, it’s a start. And we hope it reminds you of a place (or thing) that makes this amazing city your home too. Feel free to share your version of “My Memphis” with us.
Thousands of names fill page after page in the guestbook, visitors drawn here from every state in the Union, and many foreign countries as well. Herbert from Germany wrote, “Wonderful” and Luanna from Brazil scribbled “Amazing!” Eva from Kentucky said, “I have visited this place for 55 years — my entire life. Thank you for taking such care of it.” And Brad from Australia commented, “I needed to see and feel this.”
They’ve all come to the Crystal Shrine Grotto, a manmade cavern with every surface studded with quartz crystals and brightly colored stones, and a corridor lined with tableaux presenting ten scenes from the life of Jesus Christ. Outside is the hollowed-out Abraham’s Oak, footbridges, benches, fountains, and more — all seemingly formed from tree trunks or limbs, but actually cast from tinted concrete with details that include realistic-looking bark and worm holes.
This unique complex, which RoadsideAmerica.com claims “everyone enjoys for its quirky novelty,” was the creation of Mexican artist Dionicio Rodriquez. For eight years, he worked with a former insurance company executive, E. Clovis Hinds, in a rather unlikely setting — the heart of Memorial Park Cemetery in East Memphis.
Dionicio Rodriguez, working with a cemetery owner who shared his vision, left us with a highly personal creation that attracts admirers from around the globe. A visitor from Nevada summed up the experience with her guestbook comment: “Beautiful and majestic energy here!”
photograph by michael finger
Historians aren’t sure how the two gentlemen came together. In the 1920s, Hinds bought 54 acres of land along Highway 72 (Poplar Avenue) on the outskirts of Memphis and hired landscape architects to design a new kind of cemetery, with bronze grave markers mounted flush with the ground so they wouldn’t impede the lovely view of the rolling hills, dotted with mature oaks and pines. Rodriguez had crafted benches, arches, bridges, and other “natural” features for parks, restaurants, and private homes throughout Mexico and Texas. In the early 1930s, somehow he made his way to Memphis, where he added his distinctive faux bois (fake wood) creations to Memorial Park.
In 1935, he began his masterpiece. Working alone, he scooped out a 60-foot cave in the side of a hill and adorned it with tons of rocks and crystals hauled from a quarry outside Jasper, Arkansas. He never spoke to reporters, draped tarps around his work, and discarded leftover materials, so nobody could learn his secret for molding, forming, and dyeing the cement to resemble real wood. He installed the religious scenes during the eight years he worked here, with local artists David Day and Luther Hampton later adding statues and religious symbols carved from wood, stone, and plaster.
The result is something almost beyond description. It’s a religious shrine with traditional Christian iconography — but surrounded by scenes that are … otherworldly. Outside the Grotto is the tranquil Pool of Hebron, the tomblike Cave of Machpelah with its Egyptian murals, and the Garden of the Gods, surrounded by fantastic 50-foot spires of tinted cement that resemble something visitors might find on another planet.
Memphis has always been known for attracting people who draw outside the lines. They take a concept — music (Elvis, of course) or logistics (FedEx) — and carry it to a higher plane. Dionicio Rodriguez, working with a cemetery owner who shared his vision, left us with a highly personal creation that attracts admirers from around the globe. A visitor from Nevada summed up the experience with her guestbook comment: “Beautiful and majestic energy here!”
