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![]() Germantown's water tower
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![]() Location in Shelby County and state of Tennessee. |
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Coordinates: 35°5′20″N 89°47′38″W |
Germantown is a city in Shelby County, Tennessee. The population was 38,844 at the 2010 census.
Germantown is a suburb of Memphis, bordering it to the east-southeast. Germantown's economy is dominated by the retail and commercial service sectors; there is no heavy industry in Germantown. In the city center is the "Old Germantown" neighborhood, anchored by a railroad depot (a 1948 reproduction of the 1868 original) and railroad tracks that recall the community's earliest days of development as an outpost along the Memphis and Charleston Railroad.
The city hosts many horse shows and competitions annually, most notably the Germantown Charity Horse Show in June. Other major annual events include the Germantown Festival, an arts and crafts fair, in early September.
Germantown is one of a few cities in the nation possessing a triple-A bond rating from both Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s. It has the lowest crime rate for any city its size in the State of Tennessee and the police and fire departments have average emergency response time of five minutes. The parks and recreation department is nationally accredited. The Arbor Day Foundation has designated Germantown a “Tree City USA” for 23 consecutive years.
Germantown is located at
35°5′20″N 89°47′38″W (35.089023, −89.793997). It is part of the Memphis metropolitan area.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 17.6 square miles (46 km2), of which 0.04 square miles (0.10 km2), or 0.17%, is water.
Germantown was founded along the Cherokee Trace on a ridge between the Wolf River and Nonconnah Creek, about 16 miles east of the Mississippi River.
The first white settlers arrived in Germantown about 1825. Between 1825 and 1830, Miss Frances Wright established Nashoba Plantation, a utopian community intended to emancipate slaves. By 1830,the first store was opened as more settlers moved into the area.
The community became known as Pea Ridge in 1833, town lots were laid out in 1834 by surveyor N. T. German and the name was changed to Germantown in 1836, reflecting the presence of German families.
The town was incorporated in 1841. The Memphis-Charleston Railroad was built through the community in 1852. Germantown experienced set backs through the period of the Civil War and the yellow fever epidemics of that era reduced its population to a few hundred.
The town rebounded slowly. Churches destroyed in the war were rebuilt, schools were constructed and the population began to return around the turn of the century. The city name was briefly changed to Neshoba, an Indian word meaning 'wolf', during World War I.
During the twentieth century, the community derived its strength through involvement of citizens, as evidenced in the churches, garden clubs and civic organizations. The Poplar Pike Improvement Association and the Germantown Civic Club played vital roles in the physical and social development of the community.
In the last half of the century, the population grew from about 400 to more than 40,000. Over several decades, elected and civic leadership, with support of citizens, worked proactively to control suburban growth through development regulations, aesthetic controls and strategic planning efforts.
The result is a premier residential environment with high quality City services that make Germantown an attractive, healthy, safe and wholesome place to live, work, worship and play.