Developer Robertson Topp laid out Beale Street in 1841. It was first called Beale Avenue and was later renamed for Edward Fitzgerald Beale.
W.C. Handy came to Memphis around 1903. He wrote Mr. Crump in 1909 as a campaign song, and it was later renamed The Memphis Blues.
The street declined in the 1960s as urban renewal tore down buildings. Beale Street became a National Historic Landmark in May 1966, and on December 15, 1977, Congress declared it the Home of the Blues.