Old Forest Arboretum

A rare patch of old Memphis

On Wednesday, Outside published my essay about the Bass Pro Shops at the Pyramid, an outlandish Memphis landmark. The store’s floor is outfitted with taxidermied swampland beasts and neon lights: a postmodern wilderness, in other words.

But, as I note in the story, Memphis retains a bit of, well, more natural nature: the Old Forest Arboretum in Overton Park.

The Memphis metropolitan region, with more than a million people, is the largest city along the lower Mississippi River. It’s far more famous for, say, soul music and barbecued pork than for stunning nature. And sure, it’s a sprawling place, a broad realm of concrete and strip malls. But it also has something rare and precious: an old-growth urban forest.