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"The Pink Palace" was the name locals gave to this garish pink-marble mansion built by grocery store magnate Clarence Saunders shortly after World War I. It was Saunders who revolutionized grocery shopping in America when he opened the first Piggly Wiggly self-service market in 1916. Sadly, Saunders went bankrupt before he ever finished his "Pink Palace". But the city of Memphis acquired the building and today it is used as a museum of cultural and natural history. Among the exhibits here is a full-scale reproduction of the maze of aisles that constituted one of the original Piggly Wigglys. Other exhibits include a pre-Piggly Wiggly general store and an old-fashioned pharmacy with a soda fountain. Memphis's status as a major medical centre has accordingly, led to an extensive medical history exhibit in the museum. On the lighter side, kids can enjoy such exhibits as a life-size mechanical triceratops, a real mastodon skeleton, and a hand-carved miniature circus that goes into animated action. In the planetarium, there are frequently changing astronomy programs as well as rock-'n'-roll laser shows (the annual August Elvis laser show is the most popular). There is also an IMAX movie theatre here. |