In Shelby, a paved urban trail, vast forest landscapes and cultural sites with stories of their own come together. The Shelby Farms Greenline is 12.94 miles long and connects pedestrians and cyclists: it runs from Midtown Memphis through Shelby Farms Park to Cordova. The view thus extends from a clearly defined route to nature and cultural themes, each with a very different focus.
Trails and Landscapes on Different Scales
Shelby Farms Park is in Memphis and covers 4,500 acres. It is home to a herd of buffalo that roams an area of just under 50 acres. The two figures describe different scales: the area of the entire park and the grounds where the herd moves about. For nature enthusiasts, this offers a specific perspective on wildlife within a much larger park setting.
Meeman-Shelby Forest State Natural Area lies within Meeman-Shelby Forest State Park and covers 11,000 acres. It is one of the largest contiguous areas of old-growth hardwood bottomland and upland forest on Chickasaw Bluff in Tennessee. Here, the focus is on the forest landscape: both bottomland and upland forest are part of the area described, but they are distinct landscape types. Those looking to understand Shelby’s natural features can consider parkland, wildlife and forest areas as different aspects rather than combining them into a single landscape.
T.O. Fuller State Park offers another perspective. It is in Shelby County, within Memphis’s southern city limits. The 1,138-acre park is home to a diverse range of wildlife, and its landscape stretches from the Mississippi floodplains to high, prominent bluff ridges. The grounds are suited to birdwatching and outdoor activities. The park was the first state park east of the Mississippi and the second state park in the United States to be open to African Americans. In September 2025, it offered all-terrain wheelchairs, an adult-sized changing table and a half-mile accessible trail. This timing is useful practical context if you are interested in these facilities.
Music History and Historic Sites
At the Stax Museum of American Soul Music, the tour begins in an authentic Mississippi Delta church, built around 1906 and reconstructed inside the museum building. An exact replica of Studio A offers a different emphasis, drawing attention to the studio setting. The Hall of Records displays albums and singles released by Stax and its subsidiary labels between 1957 and 1975; a listening station complements the exhibit. Together, these details take visitors from a reconstructed building to a studio and then to the label’s releases.
Other historic sites each offer their own point of entry. Davies Manor Historic Site has an arboretum trail and offers guided tours of the log cabin. At the Morton Museum of Collierville History, the building itself is part of the experience: the museum is housed in a Gothic Revival religious building dating to around 1873. If you choose what to explore based on your interests, these sites have clearly distinct focuses: music and studio history at Stax, a log cabin and arboretum at Davies Manor, and Gothic Revival architecture at the Morton Museum.
Discover more destinations: Memphis, Collierville, Millington, Bartlett, Fisherville, Brunswick, Lewis County, Giles County.
For the broader travel overview: Tennessee.
