1200 Poplar Ave. (and Bellevue) Memphis, TN
Circa 1860s. Grand 3-story mansion
Henry Arthur Montgomery (1829-1887) and Maria Jane Dugan Montgomery (1829-1870) built their mansion on Poplar. They married about 1850. The Irish native planted numerous magnolia trees that remain on site.
They moved from Ohio to Tennessee. He got into the business of constructing telegraph lines and became the leader of that business. His company laid the first telegraph line from Memphis to Little Rock and later extended it to Clarksville. It also laid a line from Madison to Helena, AR. He installed the first telephone line at his home. Montgomery sold his interest in the telegraph business to Southwestern Telegraph Company.
Montgomery went into new ventures in lumber, dry goods and cotton with success. Montgomery did very well becoming founder and President of the Merchant’s Cotton Press and Storage Company. The cotton press was a major and important invention for the industry that vastly reduced the size of cotton bale storage. He earned the nickname “the Cotton King” with the success of the cotton presses - he eventually had 6 operating. He was elected Fire Commissioner in 1884.
Montgomery and Moses Katzenbeger formed the New Memphis Jockey Club in 1836. By the 1850s, it purchased land (with Montgomery as the primary investor) that would become the Fairgrounds and be called Montgomery Park by 1900. The Tennessee Derby was run from 1884-1886 and from 1890-1906. As noted in an earlier narrative, Tennessee was the most important place for horse racing in the late 19th century - with horse farms and race tracks ranging from Sumner and Robertson Cos to Davidson Co. to Shelby Co. Tennessee ceded that role to Kentucky with the anti-gambling laws at the turn of the century. Montgomery Park survived the 1906 Tennessee legislature ban on gambling, and it continued operating with harness racing and general state fairs until 1950. The City of Memphis had purchased it in 1912.
Their son Stonewall Robert Montgomery (1863-1918) married Florence Orgill Montgomery (1864-1945) in 1898, and they resided in one of the developing fashionable neighborhoods of Memphis. Her parents were Edmund and Lucy Orgill. He continued as General Manager of the Merchants Cotton Press and Storage and was president of the New Memphis Jockey Club.
Montgomery Place seems to have been demolished by 1938 when the William R Moore School of Technology Moore Tech) was constructed at the location.
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