The Pinch District

By 1830 the town of Memphis was still very small.  The inhabitants were of various types, trades, races and religions, but much of the traffic was from the flatboatmen who harbored there to rest and drink.  The establishment of choice was called the Bell Tavern, the second public house to appear in the area.  The area was known for very humble housing and the poor, mostly Irish immigrants that lived there.  The emaciated look of these inhabitants led Mr. Craven Peyton to dub the place "Pinchgut".  Pinchgut is a word that properly applies to a stingy person who willingly starves himself and others.  In this case it was loosely applied, but it stuck, and was considered an insult.

The "boundaries" of Pinchgut, or "The Pinch" were not sharply defined, but they were adjacent to an area called Catfish Bay.  This was a lake area named for its plentiful supply of fish.  There was much finger-pointing as to who were the residents of Pinch and ultimately the name stuck to all participants.  The reprecrussions of this were powerful in that poor people, or the people of the Pinch became a voting block.  "Old Ike" Ramsey lost his mayoral office when his rival Seth Wheatley appealed to the poor of the area.  Ike had recently tried to force the citizens of Catfish Bay to clean up the area, which to all account stank constantly of rotting fish.  That move came back to haunt him and he never served another term as Memphis Mayor.

After the Civil War the Pinch district was occupied mostly by poor African-Americans.  Today it is part of a downtown rejuvenation and the property values are very high.  The proximity of Pinch to the major Memphis Arenas has helped fuel a wave of new luxury high rises and fine restaurants.

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