Fact or urban legend? A Memphis political figure dead and in his grave for 56 years is responsible for bloated expenditures in the current city budget for fire stations.
The political figure is Edward Hull “Boss” Crump, a Memphis mayor, congressman, and political kingmaker in the first half of the 20th century who died in 1954. In the last month or so, three people that I consider well-informed and responsible types have suggested that I look into the fire department, which has 57 stations and accounts for 25 percent of the operating budget. Moreover, they suggested that it all goes back to Crump’s insurance company, which was one of the biggest in the South in its day.
So I asked Crump scholar G. Wayne Dowdy, archivist at the Memphis Public Library and author of “Mayor Crump Don’t Like It: Machine Politics in Memphis.”
