At the end of the band’s final set at BJ’s Secret, I decided to head back to Central Avenue through the surrounding neighborhood, and came upon several signs and murals that suggest that the Beltline neighborhood has a proud and unique history, despite those who consider it just a part of Orange Mound. The Beltline neighborhood, unlike Orange Mound, sits to the north of the Southern railroad tracks, and at least one of the signs indicates that the community is a hundred years old, which would put its founding around 1912 or 1913. The community’s name is taken from Beltline Street which runs through it, and that name suggests that the street marked the furthest eastern border of Memphis in that day. 1912 was also the year of founding of the West Tennessee State Normal School for Teachers, further east beyond the community of Buntyn at a place on the railroad that eventually became known as Normal, Tennessee. It is possible that the Beltline subdivision was developed in anticipation of the opening of the normal school to the east.
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Actually, from what I’ve been able to glean, this neighborhood was named after the Belt Line railroad company that many of those who lived here worked for.
The Belt Line community was originally an historical black community bounded by Hollywood on the West, Southern on the South,
Milton/Central on the North and Buntyn on the East. The name derives from the RR coming through-on an aerial map the new RR completed a
missing piece of a belt buckle-hence its name. Intentionally designed as a high density area, it’s many driveways are the archeological footprint
showing the original location of now demolished shotgun houses. Probably most of its resdidents had jobs as “the help” for surrounding and more affluent communities to the north and east-also founded about this time. Some of Memphis’ most noted African Americans trace their
beginnings to the Belt Line-Judge Otis Higgs (his likeness is depicted on the mural located at Buntyn and Midland) and Beverly Robertson-former head of the civic rights museum.