Overton Park protects 126 acres of old-growth forest that predates Memphis itself. Three picks in and around the coolest place in the Mid-South.
The Old Forest Arboretum is the anomaly: a state-designated natural area of 200-year-old oaks and hickories completely surrounded by city — never logged, never landscaped. Under full canopy in July it runs a genuine 10 degrees cooler than the Poplar Avenue asphalt at its edge, and the paved inner loop makes it walkable in street shoes.
These picks run the forest loop, the museum edge, and the Cooper-Young connector under Midtown’s surviving oak rows.
The full circuit under the old-growth. Interpretive signs name trees older than the state.
Across the park’s formal lawns on the tree-line path — the concert lawn’s oak edge.
Midtown’s bungalow district under the surviving willow oaks — to the gazebo crossing.
Stay Cool computes a shadow-aware route for any city we map.