![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.towingsilver.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Gibson-building.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nFun fact: Gibson Guitars<\/a> was founded in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Orville Gibson started making instruments in 1894 and founded the company in 1902. It was originally named Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Mfg. Co. Ltd.<\/p>\n This is the smokestack from the original plant in Kalamazoo. I used to teach in a school that was kitty-corner from the factory. Gibson closed this plant in the early 1980s. Some of the luthiers got together and formed Heritage Guitars<\/a> in 1985.<\/p>\n Heritage is a boutique manufacturer, making semi-hollow guitars, large jazz boxes and solid body electric guitars. I tried to track down a good definition of “jazz box”, but I found several conflicting sites. As close\u00a0as I can tell,\u00a0\u00a0a jazz box is just another name for a jazz guitar<\/p>\n While I was waiting for the tour to start, I looked at all the colorful guitars for sale.<\/p>\n I’ve always been partial to red.<\/p>\n And just how much would I have to lay out for this pretty little guitar?<\/p>\n $2,799! Plus tax! Yikes!<\/p>\n Uh…I think these mugs are more in my price range.<\/p>\n Eventually all the the members of the tour group made it, and we started into the factory.<\/p>\n Oh, well. No photos on the factory floor. The tour was taking place on Saturday, and no one was working anyway. You can use your imagination. Machines, racks, wood…<\/p>\n At the end of the tour, I got someone to take my photo. There’s a photo, so it happened!<\/p>\n And it’s good that I took the tour in 2018. They have since discontinued tours and moved production to Nashville.<\/p>\n I set out to wander around and see what interesting things I could see.<\/p>\n For instance, I was fascinated by the lengths they were going to preserve their architecture heritage.It would be interesting to see how this project turned out.<\/p>\n And, I have seen standpipes with two connections and with three, but I have never seen one with six links.<\/p>\n I strolled down Beale Street. It’s a tourist mecca, if ever I saw one.<\/p>\n I stumbled upon BB King’s Blues Club. B.B. King named all his guitars “Lucille<\/a>” and they were made by Gibson!<\/p>\n I wandered into some of the stores, but I really wasn’t into this sort of adventure.<\/p>\n You know what I wanted to do? I wanted to get my shoes polished! I headed back to The Peabody. I figured they had a shoe shine station. I got my shoes polished at The Francis in San Francisco a few years back, so I though I’d check it out.<\/p>\n I headed back over.<\/p>\n Really, I do love those fancy hotel lobbies! I headed down to the shoe shine station.<\/p>\n My goodness! My shoes really needed polishing.<\/p>\n Ah! Much better! I set out to find some food. I checked with Yelp! and headed toward The Majestic Grille.<\/p>\n Along the way, I passed a plaque honoring the Lee sisters.<\/p>\n I arrived at the restaurant, got a seat and perused the menu.<\/p>\n I got a burger. It was good enough to keep body and soul together.<\/p>\n I was impressed with their complimentary toothpick\/peppermint\/candy corn offerings by the cash register.<\/p>\n I strolled over to Elvis Presley Plaza.<\/p>\n The King!<\/p>\n This is actually the second bronze statue on Beale Street. The first statue by sculptor Eric Parks wasn’t able to stand up to the elements and souvenir-crazed fans. The fans stripped its guitar string and tore the tassels from Elvis’s suit. It was taken down in 1994 and moved indoors to the Memphis T4ennessee Welcome Center.<\/p>\n In 1997, Elvis finally returned to the plaza. Sculptor Andrea Lugar created this statue to show him as he would have looked around 1955, when he played on Beale Street.<\/p>\n This statue was designed to be more sturdy that the previous statue. The fence around the statue helps, too.<\/p>\n At this point, I decided I ought to go visit Graceland<\/a>. Well, actually, I had no interest is paying to visit Graceland. The basic ticket is $41! But, it doesn’t cost anything to drive over and look.<\/p>\n The thing that really caught my attention is the graffiti.<\/p>\n Fans would write on the stones in the wall.<\/p>\n The bricks in the wall.<\/p>\n They even wrote on the sidewalk.<\/p>\n The gates were Elvis-themed.<\/p>\n I couldn’t go past the gates. If I had wanted to to go inside, you can go visit the Mediation Garden<\/a> every day FOR FREE from 7:30-8:30. Elvis, who died in 1977, and members of his family are buried there.<\/p>\n Looking carefully (and zooming in) I could see Graceland. That was good enough for me!<\/p>\n I headed over to the river to watch the sun set over the Mississippi.<\/p>\n Tomorrow is a travel day. Destination:Nashville<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My plans for the next day included taking a tour of the Gibson Guitar Factory. Fun fact: Gibson Guitars was founded in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Orville Gibson started making instruments in 1894 and founded the company in 1902. It was originally named Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Mfg. Co. Ltd. This is the smokestack from the original plant in … Continue reading The Last of Memphis<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1451,1450,1455,1456,1448,1457,1452,1449,1458,1454,1453],"class_list":["post-15652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-b-b-king","tag-beale-street","tag-elvis-presley-plaza","tag-elvis-presley-statue","tag-gibson-guitars","tag-graceland","tag-shoeshine","tag-standpipe","tag-sunset-over-the-mississippi-river","tag-the-lee-sisters","tag-the-majestic-grille"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.towingsilver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.towingsilver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.towingsilver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.towingsilver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.towingsilver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15652"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.towingsilver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15700,"href":"https:\/\/www.towingsilver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15652\/revisions\/15700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.towingsilver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.towingsilver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.towingsilver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>
\nA rainbow of guitars.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n