A couple of weeks ago, I enthralled my half-dozen readers (yes, I’m talking about you) with photos and a few words about the odd Japanese Garden that once stood in Overton Park. Surely you remember what I said? If not, scroll down and read it again. Better yet, gather your children around you as you do so; reading the inspiring story aloud to them may deter them from a life of crime. It certainly can’t hurt.
Anyway, I was rummaging through my old postcards archived in the Lauderdale Library, searching for other images of that garden, when I came across these two cards, and thought I’d share them with you. Why? Because they actually pay me to do this. Hard to believe, but it’s true.
After they — and I don’t know who, exactly, “they” were, since I wasn’t around at the time — but as I was saying, after “they” demolished the Japanese Garden after the attack on Pearl Harbor, “they” were left with a little empty island in the middle of the lake, so “they” put a rather bleak little fountain there. And here’s an image of it, below. Oh, I could stare at it for hours!
But at some point, “they” erected a cute little log cabin on the island, as you can see in the top image. I have no idea how large (or small) this structure was; somebody should have stood beside it when they snapped the photograph, to provide a sense of scale. What were you thinking, cameraman? And I also don’t know what purpose it served, or where it came from, or what happened to it, so please don’t ask me about any of that.
What I DO know is that this is not the present-day Rainbow Lake in Overton Park. This lake, as I’ve said before, was filled in when they constructed the Memphis Academy of Arts complex.
And that concludes today’s history lesson on Overton Park.
