Danny Thomas

Danny Thomas. Thanks to entertainer Danny Thomas, who founded St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital in Memphis, this road bears the name Beale Street. Created as an avenue in 1841, locals began calling it Beale Street after the African-American blues legend W.C. Handy, who wrote Beale Street Blues in 1917. By 1955, Memphis changed the names of east-west streets to avenues. Unhappy with the decision, Thomas recorded a song, Bring Back Our Beale Street, as an appeal to Mayor Frank Tobey to keep the streets name. "Memphis don't own Beale Street," read one lyric. "It belongs to the world." 2000 copies of the record were distributed to jukeboxes and proceeds from the song benefited St. Jude, where families never receive a bill for services. Because of Thomas' efforts, Mayor Tobey changed the name back to Beale Street. In 1960, when Thomas was in town to lay the cornerstone for St. Jude, he visited Beale Street for the Handy statue dedication and played a few notes from his song on Handy's trumpet. In 1962, St. Jude opened a mile from Beale street, on a road later renamed Danny Thomas Boulevard, in honor of its founder.