Cobblestone Landing
There were several boat landings in this general area during the nineteenth century. An 1827 drawing shows a public landing approximately one-half mile north of this spot, but changes in the "batture" or built-up bank caused by the river moved the desirable landing areas further south. These included Center Landing at the west end of Poplar Avenue (near the Convention Center), the Court Street Landing immediately in front of you, and Hart's Landing at the foot of Beale Street. Concessions were granted by the City to moor wharf boats and ferry slips on the landings. Ferries operated from landings at Washington Avenue and Monroe Avenue. Other spots were reserved for wharf boats-floating docks that adjusted their mooring cables with the rising and falling river levels. Until 1860, everything from old boat gunwales to gravel was used to pave the surfaces of the landings. In that year, the City authorized stone paving between Adams and Jefferson and between Union and Beale, as well as the installation of 14 anchoring rings (many of which are still visible, as is the former official river gauge set into the stones at Beale Street). Other paving in the area was contracted for as late as 1896.
Submitted from the Shelby County Register's Office.