A Peek Back in Time - What's under the Pyramid?

Today the Commercial Appeal announced that the City and Bass Pro have reached a consensus on the above and below ground costs to stabilize the Pyramid to comply with seismic regulations ($19.5M to retrofit the building, $5.5M to stabilize the soil on the west side). Click HERE for the article.

As the redevelopment project gets started, here's a peek back in time to see how the land was used in the past.

1795 - Fort San Fernando de las Barranca sat here. It was a Spanish fort, built when the area was part of Louisiana. In 1797, the land was ceded to the U.S., the fort dismantled, and the Spanish army moved across the Mississippi River to what would become Hopefield, AR.



1844 - 54 U.S. Naval Yard. It was built at the foot of the bluff between Market and Auction streets. The soil was either accreted sand and clay, part of the bluff that had slid into the river, or, as historian John E. Harkins in his Historic Shelby County, suggests "dirt pushed down the bluff face for landfill... any traces of Fort San Fernando were in the rubble so deposited."





In 1990, the site was chosen for the new Pyramid.