Downtown Memphis
Day two of the Mid South Area trip will begin with a walking tour of downtown Memphis. We will start out at the Peabody Hotel, 149 Union Avenue (where we spent the first night). From here, we will walk west on Union Avenue. We will then turn right (north) on South Main Street. We will finish our walking tour at "Mud Island River Walk and Mississippi River Museum", 125 North Front Street. The entire tour is .6 miles and including stops along the way and should take about 2 hours to complete. Mud Island itself will take another 5 hours including lunch on site. After the tour, we will load up the vans and drive to New Madrid, Missouri to prepare for our next tour of New Madrid and the New Madrid Fault Zone.
Peabody Hotel
Before departing from the Peabody Hotel, we will take a look at the building's structure. The Peabody Hotel's construction began in 1865, before the invention of modern day earthquake resistant engineering. Its external structure is made entirely of brick (as are most of the buildings in downtown Memphis) and the internal structure contains no earthquake resistant materials. We will compare the engineering of the Peabody to the newly built Autozone Corporate Headquarters building (which is also on our walking tour). Why is the construction of buildings in downtown Memphis so important? Because Memphis lies within the New Madrid Fault Zone. To find out more about this earthquake zone, follow the previous link.
Mississippi River
After leaving the Peabody, we will walk west on Union Avenue until we reach South Main. As we walk north, we will be able to see the Mississippi River from the "bluffs" of Memphis. We will also we able to see Arkansas across the river to the west. As we walk we will discuss the flood plain of the Mississippi River from both the Memphis side and the West Memphis, Arkansas side. It will be apparent from this view why Memphis is said to be on the "bluffs" and why Memphis rarely, if ever, floods and why West Memphis does.
Autozone Corporate Headquarters
As we continue on South Main, we will come to the newly constructed Autozone Corporate Headquarters building. Located at 123 South Front Street, the Autozone Corporate building was the first building east of the rockies built with base isolation. The entire structure is supported by elastmeric or sliding bearings. This state of the art engineering design reduces damage during an earthquake by allowing the building to slide with the movement of the earth.