West Tennessee Historical Society

The West Tennessee Historical Society (WTHS) is the successor of several other historical societies which focused mainly on the Memphis area as early as 1847. In 1935, the Memphis Historical Society changed its name to the West Tennessee Historical Society, and the group became incorporated in 1950. WTHS is a now a keeper of history for all of West Tennessee and its twenty-one counties, providing historical programs, archives, publications, preservation, markers, museums, and other historical collections and is a non-profit 501(c)(3) entity chartered under the laws of the state of Tennessee. The society's activities are free and open to the public. Memberships are available at varying levels of dues. WTHS annually publishes a compendium of its latest peer-reviewed papers, which are also available online at no charge to the public.

The WTHS maintains a collection of vetted papers, freely available online, written by historians beginning in 1947 on a wide variety of historical topics relevant to West Tennessee. Since 1974, the WTHS collections and archives, once housed at the Pink Palace, are with the Special Collections Department of The University of Memphis library. These rare materials are available for use by researchers, irrespective of society membership.