The Memphis Cotton Exchange is located in

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...

Memphis Memphis most commonly refers to: * Memphis, Egypt, a former capital of ancient Egypt * Memphis, Tennessee, a major American city Memphis may also refer to: Places United States * Memphis, Alabama * Memphis, Florida * Memphis, Indiana * Memp ...

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

, United States, on the corner of Front Street and Union Avenue. It was founded in 1874 as a result of the growing cotton market in Memphis, where trade was strong after the American Civil War. The first Cotton Exchange building was constructed in 1885. It was replaced by the Exchange Building in 1910, which housed it until a newer Cotton Exchange Building was completed in 1925.

History & location

Cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus ''Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor perce ...

merchants needed a trade organization to regulate cotton marketing in the city. They were also aware of the many benefits reaped by the

New York Cotton Exchange The New York Cotton Exchange (NYCE) is a commodities exchange founded in 1870 by a group of one hundred cotton brokers and merchants in New York City. In 1998, the New York Board of Trade (NYBOT) became the parent company of the New York Cotton ...

and the

New Orleans Cotton Exchange The New Orleans Cotton Exchange was established in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1871 as a centralized forum for the trade of cotton. It operated in New Orleans until closing in 1964. Occupying several buildings over its history, its final locatio ...

. Once established, the exchange produced rules and regulation on cotton trading and set standards for buying and pricing cotton in Memphis and the mid-South. The exchanged developed a method for grading cotton to which members agreed. It operated as a "spot market" and never developed futures trading except for two short-lived experiments. The exchange developed as a source of information about world markets, and cotton merchants found they had to join as members in order to compete. The exchange also promoted "Memphis cotton" in major markets such as New York and London. For a time the Cotton Exchange was housed in what is now called the Exchange Building, built in 1910 on 9 North Second Street in Memphis. The tall, 20-story building credited to N. M. Woods housed both the Cotton and Merchant exchanges for a period. Since the decline of the exchanges in the late 20th century with diversification of the economy, it has been renovated for use as an apartment building. When the exchanges decided to have separate locations, the Memphis Cotton Exchange had a multi-story building constructed on Union Avenue; the Cotton Exchange Building opened in 1922. Cotton trading was done on the first floor, and only members of the exchange were allowed to trade there. In 1978, the trading floor was closed in favor of computer trading. The historic floor has since been remodeled and is now home to

The Cotton Museum The Cotton Museum, located in Memphis, Tennessee, U.S., is an historical and cultural museum that opened in March 2006 on the former trading floor of the Memphis Cotton Exchange at 65 Union Avenue in downtown Memphis. The mission of the Cotton Mus ...

; it is used to educate the public about the industry and agriculture of cotton, the commodity crop that built the wealth of the city of Memphis for decades.Tennessee History for Kids: Memphis Cotton Exchange

Presidents of the Memphis Cotton Exchange

References

External links

* {{Coord, 35.1433, -90.0546, display=title Financial services companies established in 1874 1874 establishments in Tennessee Commodity exchanges in the United States