President's Island
Coordinates: 35°06′15″N 90°07′55″W / 35.1043°N 90.1319°W
President's Island is a peninsula on the Mississippi River in southwest Memphis, Tennessee. The city's major river port and an industrial park are located there.
The name President or President's Island appeared as early as 1801 or 1802 in a river guide called Cramer's Navigator. The name referred to the island's size, then the largest on the Mississippi River. At that time President's Island was an actual island. Some old river maps identify the northern third of the present island as Vice President's Island.
The Freedmen's Bureau established a camp on the island for freed slaves in 1865, and about 1,500 former slaves stayed there for a time. Some years later, Nathan Bedford Forrest contracted with local officials to establish a penal farm on the island to raise corn and cotton. Forrest offered to pay Shelby County 10 cents a day for each worker. Forrest died in 1877, possibly of dysentery contracted by drinking impure island water. In the late 1870s the island served as a refuge for many people fleeing the yellow fever epidemics that swept the city, killing thousands.
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