The American Plague - Molly Caldwell Crosby [9]
To the nation at large, Memphis began to appear as a city of deplorable sanitary conditions and disease. There had to be a way to show the nation that Memphis was not just a stricken city of riverboat gambling and death carts. In 1872, General Colton Greene decided that what the depressed river town needed was an elaborate party. Greene was not the one who originally came up with the idea of Mardi Gras. David P. “Pappy” Hadden holds that distinction, but true to his nature, Greene became the one on the frontlines, and he is credited with the magnificent parades in the following decade.
Greene entreated upon the railroads to lower fares and the local merchants to discount supplies, and then he chose the date: Fat Tuesday, on the eve of Lent. Early March would enable the local cotton farmers and their families the chance to attend before planting season began. As with most other aspects of everyday Victorian life, time, seasons and even society would be directed by farming. Mardi Gras would be the grand finale to the Memphis social season, which began each winter when the harvest was over and the first frost fell, quelling the outbreak of disease.
Greene’s handful of leaders called themselves the Mystic Memphi, and their secret society served as the main body of wealth and power for the city. Their names were never revealed, and in fact, their existence never even admitted until decades later. Greene convened clandestine gatherings in a real estate office overlooking Court Square and Second Street. The night a meeting was to take place the newspaper simply published the letters UEUQ, taken from the gates of ancient Memphis, Egypt; only those who knew the meaning need answer the call. Over the next several years, the Memphi, and their younger, rowdier counterparts known as the Ulks, would organize the most lavish Mardi Gras celebrations ever seen.
It was unusually warm as the final preparations for the 1878 Mardi Gras were under way. Clusters of white sprang from the branches of the peach and pear trees, crocuses and daffodils had blossomed in January and long ago dropped their petals. And the Mississippi River gave off the scent of silted water warm with sunshine.
The curious heat wave only enlivened the festivities; planks of fresh pine were piled along Main Street as skeletal bleachers took shape among the buildings. Crates of champagne arrived, and fine wines hidden during Yankee occupation surfaced. Costumes from Paris were unpacked, and Confederate gray not seen since the end of the war was pressed. Lowenstein and Brothers advertised silks, evening brocades and satins, not to mention the accompanying opera fans, cloaks and kid gloves. This year’s Mardi Gras would even boast the new, brilliant effect of artificial light at night. Memphis prepared for what would surely be the grandest of all Mardi Gras celebrations. In 1878, $40,000—by today’s standards, well over $1 million—would be spent through private funding on the extravagant parade celebrating the King and Queen of Memphis society.
Not everyone in Memphis would take part in Carnival—after all, the city may have had 115 saloonkeepers, 18 houses of prostitution and roughly 3,000 dope addicts, but it also had close to two dozen churches. The temperance supporters opposed the drinking that accompanied the festivities. Considered a heathen celebration, Mardi Gras was blasted from the pulpits with dire predictions of wrath and doom. Colonel Charles Parsons preached no such warnings,