Fourth Bluff Park is a downtown Memphis park sitting directly on top of the Chickasaw Bluff, overlooking the Mississippi River near Front Street and Court Avenue. Before its current name, the site was Confederate Park and, for part of its history, Jefferson Davis Park. It took its present name and design after a rebuild finished in 2018.
What is Fourth Bluff Park?
Fourth Bluff Park is a small bluff-top park in the heart of downtown Memphis. It occupies land where the Chickasaw Bluff drops toward the Mississippi River, a location that shaped where the original city was platted in the first place. Readers wanting the geology and settlement history behind that bluff can find it in Access Memphis’s piece on the Chickasaw Bluff that shaped downtown’s layout.
The park is bounded roughly by Front Street, Court Avenue and the bluff edge. It sits within a short walk of the Memphis Cossitt Library, Civic Center Plaza and the rest of the downtown riverfront corridor. It is managed by Memphis River Parks Partnership, the nonprofit that operates several riverfront properties on behalf of the city.
Physically, the park is compact. It is not a large green space like Shelby Farms or Overton Park. Its value is the view: an open, elevated sightline down onto the river, the Hernando de Soto Bridge, and the Arkansas side beyond it.
What was Fourth Bluff Park called before?
The ground now called Fourth Bluff Park was originally developed as Confederate Park in the early 1900s, dedicated to Confederate war dead. Immediately adjacent to it stood a smaller, separate bluff-top plot that carried the name Jefferson Davis Park, after the statue of the Confederate president placed there.
Both names lasted for decades. In 2013, the Memphis City Council renamed a group of Confederate-associated parks across the city. Confederate Park became Memphis Park. The adjoining Jefferson Davis Park became Mississippi River Park. A third, unrelated park — Forrest Park, several blocks away — became Health Sciences Park at the same time.
So by the time redesign work began in 2017, the site had already gone through one renaming. The 2013 names were themselves a response to public pressure over Confederate memorialization, not a redesign. The land, the statues, and the layout stayed the same. Only the signage changed.
Why did the name change again, and why the redesign?
The 2013 renaming addressed the names. It did not touch the statues, the paths, or the disconnect between the park and the rest of downtown. That came later, driven by two separate but overlapping forces.
First, Memphis was selected as one of five pilot cities for Reimagining the Civic Commons, a national initiative backed by the Knight Foundation, the Kresge Foundation, and the JPB Foundation, aimed at rebuilding underused public spaces to draw people back downtown. Memphis River Parks Partnership and city agencies used that funding, matched with local money, to rebuild the former Memphis Park and Mississippi River Park as a single connected space.
Second, the presence of the Jefferson Davis statue had become a point of sustained public objection well before the redesign was finished. The city moved to remove it in December 2017, in the middle of the construction work, rather than after. The rebuilt, unified park reopened under a new name in 2018: Fourth Bluff Park, after the bluff itself rather than any historical figure.
What did the 2017–2018 redesign actually fund and build?
The redesign combined two adjoining parks into one, added amphitheater-style seating cut into the bluff, and built a diagonal pedestrian crossing at Front Street and Court Avenue. Public reporting on the project puts the total cost at roughly $8.7 million, funded mainly by the Hyde Family Foundation and a Reimagining the Civic Commons grant.
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Related readingwhat the city is like to actually live in, getting around, planning, itineraries, food and the riverfront, museums, landmarks, neighbourhoods and day trips, Memphis vs Nashville: What the Published Numbers Actually Show. Access Memphis is an independent guide written from published, checkable sources. We have not visited the places described here and we do not publish personal recommendations or invented ‘local favourites’ — where something is singled out as notable, we say who says so. Opening times, fares, closures and prices change at short notice, so treat everything here as a starting point and confirm with the museum, operator or venue directly before building a day around it. We give no advice on visas, insurance, health or safety; use your own government’s official guidance for those. Any prices mentioned are indicative only. Tool prices move constantly and vary by market, by retailer, and by whether a kit includes batteries or a charger — check the current price yourself before deciding. About what you read here. Everything on Access Memphis is general information and our own editorial opinion. We research carefully and we say when the evidence is unclear, but we can be wrong, things change, and no article can know your particular situation. Please do your own research and make your own judgement rather than treating anything here as the final word. Prices, products and specifications around the topics we cover change constantly, and what suits one person will not suit another. Check current details yourself, and where a decision involves real money, safety or something you cannot undo, it is worth confirming with a qualified professional before you act. |
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