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Saturday, May 19, 2012
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You are here ::PoliticsMayors of MemphisRobert Lawrence
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Robert Lawrence

In 1830 the "proprietors" (Overton, McLemore and the Winchesters) were still quite active in Memphis.  Robertson Topp had helped establish "South Memphis" as a rival town adjacent to Memphis.  One of the chief land developers in South Memphis was Robert Fearn.  He did not like the proprietors and the proprietors very much hoped for an eventual merger with South Memphis.  As a conciliatory nod the proprietors backed Fearn's business partner Robert Lawrence for the mayoralty and made him a joint agent in the Memphis community.

The first bank in Memphis was the Farmers and Merchants, established in 1835, with Robert Lawrence, president and Charles Lofland cashier.  He was a long-term Memphian, one of five Lawrence brothers, one of whom, William Lawrence, was Memphis' original surveyor.  Robert Lawrence seems to have run at all times in the same social circles as the city's leadership.  Once source declares that he possessed, "Democratic habits and an obliging disposition".  All that not-withstanding he was defeated in his re-election bid by the ever-popular Ike Rawlings.

  
Here the history of Memphis is presented.  From the Chickasaw to the great New Madrid earthquake of 1811 on to the land's purchase by John Overton and Andrew Jackson, followed by incorporation and Civil War occupation.  Picking up with the yellow fever followed by the surrender of the city charter and the tenure of the former city as a taxing district of Shelby County and the state of Tennessee.  We continue Memphis history into the days of Crump and the progressive era when the city would be made to conform to order.  Memphis history is rich with time, music and commerce.  From the blues of Beale Street to Elvis Presley and Sun Records the City of Memphis been enriched by transporation, cotton, mules and hardware; bridge openings to celebrate and the sorrows of the 1968 Sanitation Strike which culminated in the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Memphis has persevered through pain and has been anything but dull.  This is our story...
img List of Mayors | Marcus Winchester | Isaac Rawlings | Seth Wheatley | Robert Lawrence | Enoch Banks | John H. Morgan | Thomas Dixon | William Spickernagle | Edwin Hickman | Jesse J. Finley | Gardner B. Locke | A. B. Taylor | A. H. Douglas | Thomas Carroll | Richard D. Baugh | John Park | Lt. Col. Thomas H. Harris | William Lofland | Edgar McDavitt | John W. Leftwich | John Johnson | John Loague | John R. Flippin | John Overton, Jr. | Dr. D. T. Porter | David Park Hadden | William D. Bethell | W. L. Clapp | J. J. Williams | Edward H. Crump | George C. Love | Tyler McClain | R. A. Utley | Thomas C. Ashcroft | Harry H. Litty | Frank L. Monteverde | Rowlett Paine | Watkins Overton | Joseph Patrick Boyle | Walter Chandler | Sylvanus W. Polk, Sr. | James J. Pleasants, Jr. | Frank T. Tobey | Edmund Orgill | Henry Loeb | Claude Armour | William B. Ingram | Wyeth Chandler | J. O. Patterson, Jr. | Wallace Madewell img
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