Historical Site Markers in Nashville

Antioch High School

Antioch High School opened here in the fall of 1933, after community members from Antioch, Cane Ridge and Mims (Bakertown) signed petitions to the Board of Education urging them to choose Antioch, not Una, as the school location. Previously the school had been on Antioch Pike near Mill Creek. A wing for the elementary school was added in 1951, with another wing added in 1958. This building became Antioch Middle in 1997, when the high school moved to a new location on Hobson Pike.

Location: 5050 Blue Hole Rd.
Number 208
Erected 2020

Antioch Pike

The Mill Creek Valley Turnpike Company was incorporated by the TN Gen. Assembly on January 21, 1846. Starting near the four-mile mark of Nolensville Pike, the road went through Mill Creek valley, “crossing main Mill creek at or near Rains’ mills, passing Antioch meeting house” and continuing south. Tollbooths could be established every five miles to pay for the completion of the road. The name was changed to Antioch Pike in October 1928.

Location: 2360 Antioch Pike
Number 164
Erected 2018

Bass Park

{double-sided}
This .2-acre lot was purchased by East Nashville citizens and presented to the city on December 12, 1921 as a public park and playground. The undeveloped lot provided views of the adjacent fire hall and was intended to keep firefighters from being disturbed. Nashville’s smallest park, Bass Park was named in honor of Fire Captain Herman Bass, the first captain of the fire hall.

Location: 1602 Holly St.
Number 149
Erected 2013

Belle Meade Golf Links Historic District

Platted in 1915 by developer Johnson Bransford, Belle Meade Golf Links is one of the early subdivisions that arose from the dissolution of the world-famous Belle Meade Plantation. This small residential district represents early 20th century subdivision design and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Location: Belle Meade Golf Links, Intersection of Windsor Dr. and Blackburn Ave.
Number 121
Erected 2005

Belle Vue

The original log part of this house was built about 1818 by Abram DeMoss and named for the house his father Lewis DeMoss, built in 1797 overlooking the Harpeth River a mile southwest. In time the name was given to the Nashville and Northwestern Railroad depot and to the U.S. Post Office. Thus the Bellevue community owes its name to this historic site.

Location: 7306 Old Harding Road
Number 45
Erected 1971

Bellevue High School

Bellevue High School opened in 1931, serving almost 100 students. The first senior class graduated in 1933. A new high school opened across the street in 1970, and the former high school became a junior high. Amid community protests, Bellevue High School closed in 1980. The building was demolished in 1981. For the 50 years it stood, the school was the cornerstone of the Bellevue community, and students recorded numerous academic and athletic achievements.

Location: 659 Colice Jeanne Road
Number 262
Erected 2023

Bells Bend

{double-sided}
Bells Bend, first known as White’s Bend, is an 18-square-mile area encompassed by a U-shaped bend in the Cumberland River. Numerous archaeological sites indicate that the area has been inhabited for at least 10,000 years. Bells Bend has thrived as an agricultural community since the early 19th century with landowners that included Montgomery Bell and David Lipscomb. The Clees family operated a mill and ferry service beginning in the 1870’s. Clees Ferry ceased operation in 1990.

Location: Old Hickory Blvd at Ashland City Highway
Number 136
Erected 2009

Belmont-Hillsboro Neighborhood

When Adelicia Acklen’s estate was sold in 1890, the Belmont Mansion and its grounds became Belmont College. Other portions, and parts of the neighboring Sunnyside Mansion property, were subdivided into residential lots by the Belmont Land Co. In 1900-1910, streetcar lines were built running to Cedar Lane on Belmont Boulevard and to Blair Boulevard on 21st Ave. The neighborhood became a National Register Historic District in 1980.

Location: 2500 Belmont Blvd.
Number 142
Erected 2011

Belmont Mansion

This mansion was built in 1853 as a summer home for Joseph and Adelicia Acklen. An 1860 addition by architect Adolphus Heiman expanded the mansion’s size to 36 rooms. The entrance to the 177-acre estate, which featured gardens decorated with marble statues and cast iron gazebos, was on Hillsboro Pike. Also on the grounds were greenhouses, a water tower, bowling alley, zoo, art gallery and deer park.

Location: Belmont Campus in front of the mansion
Number 16
Erected 1969

Berger Building

{double-sided}
In 1926, Samuel W. Berger hired local architect Ozrow J. Billis to design this stylish building outfitted with colorful glazed terra cotta tiles. Berger was a Hungarian immigrant and one of the city’s leading retail merchants. The Roy Warden Piano and Organ Co., a popular music store, operated here for over forty years. Listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1984, the building is one of Nashville’s finest examples of early 20th century commercial design.

Location: 164 Rosa L. Parks Boulevard
Number 225
Erected 2020

Blackwood Field

In 1921 the State rented land west of Shute Lane and erected two hangars here for the 105th Observation Squadron, Tennessee National Guard. The airfield of about 100 acres was named for H. O. Blackwood, who gave $1,000 to aid the project. The first airmail flight from Nashville was from here to Chicago July 29, 1924. Airplanes used the field until 1928.

Location: Shute Lane 0.3 miles north of Lebanon Rd.
Number 32
Erected 1970

Blue Triangle YWCA

The Nashville Blue Triangle, the Negro branch of the Young Women’s Christian Association, was established in 1919. Located downtown in the thriving African American business district, it developed programs that supported the African American community. The largest Blue Triangle in the South, it had more than 700 members. On October 25, 1953, the branch moved to this site. It remained here until 1967, when Nashville’s YWCAs desegregated and merged.

Location: 500 17th Avenue N
Number 243
Erected 2022

BMI Broadcast Music, Inc.

BMI (Broadcast Music, Inc.), an organization that collects performance royalties for songwriters and music publishers in all genres of music, opened its doors in New York in 1940. BMI was the first performance rights organization to represent what was then commonly referred to as rural and race music in the forms of country, gospel, blues, and jazz. In 1958, BMI established a permanent Nashville office and hired Frances Williams Preston as manager. BMI constructed the first wing of this building in 1964 and expanded it in 1995. This office represents songwriters and music publishers in Memphis, Atlanta, New Orleans, Muscle Shoals and Austin, and played a key role in developing Nashville as Music City, U.S.A.

Location: 10 Music Square East
Number 144
Erected 2012

Bradley Studios

In 1955, brothers Owen and Harold Bradley built a recording studio in the basement of a house on this site. They added another studio here in an army Quonset Hut, producing hits by Patsy Cline, Red Foley, Brenda Lee, Marty Robbins, Sonny James, and others. Columbia Records purchased the studios in 1962. The studio established its reputation in the music industry with hits by stars including Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Roger Miller, George Jones, and Tammy Wynette.

Donated by the Mike Curb Foundation

Location: Bradley Park, 34 Music Square East
Number 140
Erected 2011

Brewery at Mill Creek

Arthur Redmond, a European brewer who immigrated to Nashville in 1815, established a brewery and bakery on Chicken Pike, now Elm Hill Pike. Situated along the east side of Mill Creek near Foster’s and Buchanan’s mills, he brewed porter and ale and baked “ship bread” with barley purchased from local farmers. In 1819, Redmond was awarded a U.S. patent for “brewing improvements.” After his death in 1823, Paul Bianchi took over operations until closing in 1825.

Donated by the Mertie Family

Location: 1675 Elm Hill Pike
Number 216
Erected 2020

Buchanan Log House

James Buchanan (1763-1841) built this two-story single pen log house with hall and parlor plan c1807. The single pen log addition was added c1820 to accommodate the Buchanan family’s sixteen children. The house displays a high level of craftsmanship and is one of the best examples of two-story log construction in Middle Tennessee. The house was restored and placed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

Location: 2910 Elm Hill Pike
Number 130
Erected 2008

Buena Vista Elementary School

The first Buena Vista School opened in 1888 and was demolished in 1936. Architects Marr & Holman designed this Jacobean-style school, opened in 1931. Three African American first grade students desegregated the school on September 9, 1957. About 100 protesters surrounded the school, but all students and parents made it safely inside. Members of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) visited parents in the area, supporting those already enrolled and encouraging others to join them.

In Brown v. Topeka (1954) and Brown II (1955) the U.S. Supreme Court ordered public schools nationwide to end racial segregation “with all deliberate speed.” Nashville failed to comply, resulting in the Kelley v. Board of Education case (1955) and the 1957 enactment of a grade-per-year plan starting at the first grade. In 1963, the Maxwell v. Davidson County (1960) case was merged with the Kelley case. In 1998, the court deemed the Metro school system to be desegregated.

Location: 1531 9th Avenue N
Number 221
Erected 2020

Campaign to Win the Vote

The Nashville Equal Suffrage League was formed nearby in 1911 at the former Tulane Hotel. In coordination with the Tennessee Equal Suffrage Association the energetic efforts of women leaders influenced public opinion in the decade ahead. Nashville’s suffragists hosted the 1914 convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), a milestone event. The Hermitage Hotel was headquarters and became the site of many future suffrage activities.

Location: 600 Church Street
Number 226
Erected 2020

Captain Ryman's Home

On this site stood the residence of Captain Thomas Green Ryman, owner of the Ryman steamboat line and builder of the Union Gospel Tabernacle, renamed Ryman Auditorium after his death in 1904. The Queen Anne frame house with a slate roof, seven gables and two turrets, served as the home of Captain and Mrs. Ryman and their seven children from 1885-1926. The house was razed in 1940.

Location: 500 2nd Avenue South
Number 92
Erected 1994

Centennial Park Swimming Pool

Opened in 1932, the pool served Nashville’s white community as a premier swimming facility for nearly 30 years. City officials abruptly closed the pool in 1961 after two African American student civil rights activists, Kwame (Leo) Lillard and Matthew Walker Jr., led an effort to desegregate the facility. The city responded by closing all Nashville public pools, blaming the sweeping closures on budgetary concerns.

While many neighborhood pools eventually reopened in 1963 under the newly consolidated metropolitan government, this facility sat vacant for 10 years—to some, a daily reminder of the city’s racial divide. The pool’s bathhouse was renovated and reopened as Centennial Art Center on April 23, 1972. The former deep end of the swimming pool is preserved as a sunken lawn in the rear portion of the building’s courtyard.

Location: 301 25th Avenue N
Number 240
Erected 2022

Central High School

Founded in 1915 as the first public high school in the county system, Central High School stood here from 1921-1971. One of the earliest student government associations in the South began here. Many graduates became city and county political leaders. The last mayor of the old Nashville City Government, Ben West, and first Metro Government mayor, Beverly Briley, were classmates here.

Location: 161 Rains Avenue
Number 100
Erected 1997

Chickasaw Treaty

In 1783, Chickasaw chiefs met with white settlers at a spring 100 yards north and agreed on land rights—the Cumberland country for the settlers, the Tennessee River lands beyond the Duck River ridge for the Chickasaw. This tribe became firm friends of James Robertson and his people, but the settlement suffered many more raids by Cherokees and Creeks.

Location: Corner of Morrow Rd and Terry Dr.
Number 17
Erected 1969

City of Edgefield

The portion of East Nashville known as Edgefield, the name suggested by Gov. Neill S. Brown, was incorporated as a city January 2, 1869. Its approximate bounds were Shelby Ave., Sevier St., So. 10th St., Berry St., Cowan Ave. and the River. It’s first mayor was W.A. Glenn and its last was S.M. Wene. It was annexed to the City of Nashville February 6, 1880.

Location: S 5th St. and Fatherland St.
Number 27
Erected 1970

Clover Bottom Mansion

Built in 1858 by Dr. James Hoggatt on land inherited from his father, Capt. John Hoggatt, a Revolutionary War soldier, this fine Italian villa style home is centered in an area of local historical significance. John Donelson settled early in this rich Stones River bottom area, followed by Andrew Jackson, who married his daughter, Rachel.

Location: 2930 Lebanon Road
Number 63
Erected 1976

Club Baron

Jefferson Street developed as a vibrant African-American commercial district in the late-19th and early-20th century. As Fisk University, Tennessee A and I (Tennessee State University) and Meharry Medical College grew, more restaurants, shops and music venues opened to cater to nearby residents. Built in 1955 during the golden age of Jefferson Street’s music scene (1935-65), Club Baron is the only extant nightclub from that time. Owned by local pharmacist Jackson H. Brown, the building also served as a secondary location for Brown’s Pharmacy, as well as the only skating rink in town for African Americans. The club is best known as the site of a 1963 guitar duel where Nashville bluesman Johnny Jones bested the up-and-coming Jimi Hendrix. Other well-known performers included Fats Domino, Etta James, Little Richard, Otis Redding, Muddy Waters, Jackie Wilson and Ruth McFadden. Now owned by the Elks Lodge, the building was preserved as a local Historic Landmark in 2016.

Location: 2614 Jefferson St.
Number 193
Erected 2019

Cockrill School

Through the efforts of Mark Sterling Cockrill and Lemuel Davis, a school serving West Nashville children in grades 1-8 opened near here in 1888. High school grades were soon added and the school became West Nashville High School. Following annexation, the school was renamed Cockrill School in 1907. The Public Works Administration constructed the current building at this location, the former Clifton Park. Designed by Marr and Holman, this building opened in 1940.

Location: 610 49th Ave N
Number 153
Erected 2013

Cohn School

Designed by architects Asmus and Clark and opened in 1928 as a junior high school, Cohn School was named in memory of Corinne Lieberman Cohn, one of the first female members of the school board. Jonas H. Sikes served as first principal. The school added high school grades in 1937, and graduated its first high school class in 1940. Following school desegregation, Cohn High merged with Pearl High in 1983. The building now serves as the Cohn Adult Learning Center.

Location: 4805 Park Ave.
Number 148
Erected 2012

Cora Howe’s Wildings

This house, built from Sewanee stone, was the home of Cora Howe, who created a bucolic, English-style garden here in the early 1920s. Known as “Wildings,” her garden contained over 300 plant types, many of them native species, and a rare, thatched-roof tool house. Mrs. Howe was wholly dedicated to the unique garden estate, and opened it to the community for nearly 40 years. After her death in 1968, the gardens were transplanted to Cheekwood.

Location: 1921 Greenwood Ave.
Number 170
Erected 2018

Cornelia Fort Airport

Cornelia Fort (1919-43), Nashville’s first woman flying instructor volunteer, Army’s WAFS, WWII, was the first woman pilot to die on war duty in American history. “I am grateful that my one talent, flying, was useful to my country.” she wrote shortly before her death. Miss Fort was lost in a crash over Texas flying a basic-trainer plane, BT 13-A, across the United States.

Location: Cornelia Fort Airport, Airpark Drive
Number 66
Erected 1976

Craighead House

This Federal-style home was built c1810 for John Brown Craighead and his first wife Jane Erwin Dickinson. Craighead was the son of early Nashville settler the Rev. Thomas Craighead. In 1823, Craighead married Lavinia Robertson Beck, youngest daughter of Nashville founders Charlotte and James Robertson. Major additions to the house were made in 1824, 1919, and 1998. Developers purchased the Craighead estate in 1905 and planned the present-day Richland-West End neighborhood.

Location: 3710 Westbrook Ave
Number 137
Erected 2009

Crieve Hall

The Crieve Hall neighborhood was part of the over 2,000-acre estate of John Overton, on which he built Travellers Rest in 1799. Jesse M. Overton built an English Tudor-style house called Overton Hall near here in 1900. Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Farrell purchased the estate in 1925, expanded the home and extensive gardens, and renamed it Crieve Hall after the ancestral Farrell home in Northern Ireland. The house was razed in the 1950s, and Crieve Hall Elementary School opened in 1955.

Location: 498 Hogan Rd.
Number 205
Erected 2019

Cumberland Park

The Cumberland Fair and Racing Association sponsored harness racing here 1891-1894. The great match race between Hal Pointer of Tennessee and Direct of California occurred October 21, 1891. Direct won all three heats in record time for a pacing race. Arion, Directum, Kremlin, Robt. J. raced here. Running races 1893-1906 preceded the State Fair 1906.

Location: Rains Ave. at Walsh Road
Number 23
Erected 1970

Customs House

President Rutherford B. Hayes laid its cornerstone in 1877. Designed by Treasury Department architect W.A. Potter, it was occupied in 1882 by collectors of customs and internal revenue, U.S. courts, and Nashville’s main post office. Addition to rear began in 1903, wings in 1916. Declared surplus in 1976, then given to the City, it was renovated by the development firm that leased it.

Location: 701 Broadway
Number 76
Erected 1982

Devon Farm

Home of John Davis, early surveyor, who came from N.C. to Nashville in 1788. Davis was an Indian fighter and scout in the State Militia until 1795. He settled on Big Harpeth in 1795-96 and that year built a 1½-story home of hand-made brick. The farm, named for Devon cattle bred here, has been owned by seven generations of Davis-Hicks descendants.

Location: Hwy 100 near Devon Farm entrance
Number 56
Erected 1975

Dodson School

As early as 1815, school was held nearby at Stoner’s Lick Methodist Church. In 1843, early settler Timothy Dodson granted land for a dedicated schoolhouse that was built c. 1855. After it burned, classes were held at the Hermitage railroad station until a one-room frame school was rebuilt in 1880. Old Dodson School was built in 1936, expanded in 1950 and 1955; it was desegregated January 23, 1961. Dodson School, designed by Nashville architect Earl Swensson, opened here in 1968.

Location: 4401 Chandler Rd.
Number 187
Erected 2019

Dudley Field/ Vanderbilt Stadium

Dudley Field opened on October 14, 1922. Named for Dr. William Dudley, it was the first stadium in the South built for football. The first night game took place on September, 25, 1954, after lights were installed for the Billy Graham Crusade. Events here included the first NFL exhibition game in the South, in 1944, and a speech by President John F. Kennedy in 1963. After a major renovation, it re-opened as Vanderbilt Stadium on September, 12, 1981. It was also home to the Tennessee Oilers in 1998.

Location: Natchez Trace at 26th Avenue S
Number 248
Erected 2022

Dudley Park

Originally known as Chestnut Street Park, land for this South Nashville park was purchased in 1913. That same year, two daughters of Parks Commission chairman Robert M. Dudley—Louise and Rebecca—died in a train accident in Iowa. The park was renamed in their memory in 1914. Baseball fields and a swimming pool were added in 1920, and the Works Progress Administration built a community center in the 1930s. The park often hosted weekly concerts and movie nights in addition to sports.

Location: 1201 3rd Avenue S
Number 229
Erected 2020

Duncan College Preparatory School for Boys

Marvin T. Duncan, a graduate of Webb School (Bell Buckle) and Vanderbilt University, founded Duncan School in 1908 at this site on 25th Avenue, S. He and his wife, Pauline, taught at the school until it closed in 1952. The Duncans dedicated their lives to training boys in high principles of honor and scholarship. The school graduated some 752 men and 6 women, including many community leaders.

Location: 25th Avenue South in front of Vanderbilt Memorial gym
Number 105
Erected 1999

Duncan Hotel

The Duncan Hotel opened on this site in 1889. The Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America union formed here in 1914, before the hotel closed in 1916. R.H. Boyd, Preston Taylor and others purchased the building and opened the first Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) for Black men. Located in the heart of the African-American business district, it shared the space with Citizens Savings Bank and Trust (formerly One Cent Savings Bank) and other African-American businesses.

Location: 321 Dr. M.L.K. Jr. Blvd.
Number 196
Erected 2019

Dutchman's Curve Train Wreck

The deadliest train wreck in U.S. history occurred on July 9, 1918, when two crowded trains collided head-on at Dutchman’s Curve. the impact caused passenger cars to derail into surrounding cornfields, and fires broke out throughout the wreckage. Over 100 died, including many African-American workers journeying to work at the munitions plant near Old Hickory.

Sponsored by the Bellevue Harpeth Historic Association

Location: White Bridge Road at Richland Creek Greenway Trailhead
Number 128
Erected 2008

East Nashville Fire

Nashville’s worst disaster by fire occurred on March 22, 1916. The fire began at 11:47 a.m. near the rear of Seagraves Planing Mill at S. 1st and Oldham Streets. Winds of over 50 mph swept it eastward. The fire was brought under control around 4:30 p.m. near S. 10th and Dew Streets. Over 35 blocks, it burned nearly 650 buildings, including Warner School, Little Sisters of the Poor, and Woodland Presbyterian Church. One person was killed, and 3,000 were left homeless..

Location: Fatherland St. and S 7th St.
Number 7
Erected 1968

Eastland

{double-sided}

The Eastwood area, a suburb originally named Eastland in 1901, was laid out as the Brownsville plan in 1855, the land carved from the Weakley tract. Their c.1855 house remains at the northeast corner of Chapel and Greenwood. Eastland Avenue, previously Vaughn’s Pike, was named for and led to a 19th century farm near the river. The old Eastland School, now Eastland Park, was acquired in 1953 by the Park Board and functioned as a community center until the building was demolished.

Location: 1921 Greenwood Ave.
Number 170
Erected 2018

Edmondson Home Site

Will Edmondson, born about 1883 of former slave parents in the Hillsboro area of Davidson County, worked as a railroad and hospital laborer until 1931, when he began his primitive limestone carvings. Working without formal training, he produced some remarkable sculptures which won high praise in exhibits across the nation. He died in 1951.

Location: 1450 14th Ave S
Number 68
Erected 1976

Edwin Warner Park 606.7 acres

Edwin Warner (1870-1945) succeeded his brother Percy on the Park Board in 1927 and served for eighteen years. He personally directed the acquisition of most of the Warner Park acreage and supervised WPA development of the property. Warner organized a major Victory Garden program in the park during WWII. Park land west of Old Hickory Blvd. was renamed in his honor in 1937.

Location: Highway 100 at Edwin Warner Park entrance
Number 80
Erected 1982

Eighth Avenue South Reservoir

This 51 Mil. Gal. Reservoir was built 1887-89 on Kirkpatrick Hill, the site of Federal Fort Casino during Civil War. It is elliptical in shape with axes of 603 and 463.4 ft. Perimeter of wall is 1,746 ft. and water depth is 31 ft. Rupture in east wall occurred at 12:10 a.m., November 5, 1912. The interior was waterproofed in 1921. Designated as a National Water Landmark by AWWA, 1971.

Location: 1401 8th Ave S, wall marker in front of the reservoir
Number 50
Erected 1971

Emma Clemons School

Emma B. Clemons (1850-1906) was the first female principal in Nashville, a member of the Board of Education and the first female educator with a school named in her honor. Emma Clemons School opened in 1908, burned in 1914, and re-opened in 1916. On September, 9, 1957, an African American first grade student desegregated the school. There were no protestors at Clemons School that day, as no Black students had pre-registered. The school closed in 1971 and was razed in 1982.

In Brown v. Topeka (1954) and Brown II (1955) the U.S. Supreme Court ordered public schools nationwide to end racial segregation “with all deliberate speed.” Nashville failed to comply, resulting in the Kelley v. Board of Education case (1955) and the 1957 enactment of a grade-per-year plan starting at the first grade. In 1963, the Maxwell v. Davidson County (1960) case was merged with the Kelley case. In 1998, the court deemed the Metro school system to be desegregated.

Location: 2233 12th Avenue S
Number 222
Erected 2020

Enchanted Hills

Called the “Belle Meade of North Nashville” by local newspapers, the Enchanted Hills subdivision was platted between 1962 and 1989 as one Nashville’s most prestigious African American neighborhoods. The architect-designed “ultra-modern” houses retain striking Mid-Century Modern and Contemporary architecture. Neighbors have fought for decades to preserve this unique neighborhood from development, including a 1986 effort led by resident, and future state senator, Thelma Harper.

Location: King Street at Enchanted Court
Number 259
Erected 2023

Ezell House

In 1805 Jeremiah Ezell (1775-1838) moved here from Virginia and purchased 17 acres of land on Mill Creek. In 1816 he served on the Court of Pleas for Davidson County. In 1888, his grandson, Henry Clay Ezell, built this brick vernacular Queen Anne style house. His large farm was known for breeding fine mules from stock imported from Spain.

Location: corner of Old Ezell Rd and Donelson Pike/Harding Pl
Number 115
Erected 2003

Fall School

Fall School, built in 1898, is the oldest public school building remaining in Nashville. Named after Mr. P.S. Fall, a prominent Nashville businessman and member of the Board of Education from 1865-1867, it served as an elementary school until 1970. In 1982 it was privately renovated for offices. Unlike the earlier study hall design, Fall School had individual classrooms.

Location: 1116 8th Avenue S
Number 177
Erected 1982

Fehr School

Named for local merchant and former Board of Education member Rudolph Fehr (1850-1916), Fehr School opened in 1924. It was designed by architects Dougherty and Gardner. On September 9, 1957, the school was desegregated by four African American first grade students. Some 200 protestors surrounded the school, jeering as students entered. Members of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) visited parents in the area, supporting those already enrolled and encouraging others to join them.

In Brown v. Topeka (1954) and Brown II (1955) the U.S. Supreme Court ordered public schools nationwide to end racial segregation “with all deliberate speed.” Nashville failed to comply, resulting in the Kelley v. Board of Education case (1955) and the 1957 enactment of a grade-per-year plan starting at the first grade. In 1963, the Maxwell v. Davidson County (1960) case was merged with the Kelley case. In 1998, the court deemed the Metro school system to be desegregated.

Location: 1624 5th Avenue North
Number 219
Erected 2020

First Airfield

E. L. Hampton’s pasture became “Hampton Field” when transient airplanes began landing here during the first World War. About 2,000 feet long from here west, bonded north and south by Golf Club Lane and Woodmont Boulevard, it continued in use as Nashville’s first airfield about five years until the opening of Blackwood Field in 1921.

Location: 2305 Hampton Avenue
Number 31
Erected 1970

First Steam Locomotive

On December 13, 1850, the first steam engine, Tennessee Number 1, ordered by the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad arrived at the wharf on the steamboat Beauty, from Cincinnati. The one mile trip on improvised track from the wharf to the S. Cherry St. crossing required 4 days by mule power. A one mile run was made from this point on December 27, 1850.

Location: Fourth Ave. South railroad crossing at Hart St.
Number 41
Erected 1971

Freedman’s Bank

In March 1865, Congress established the Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company Bank. A Nashville branch was chartered in December 1865. By 1867, there were 37 branches, mostly in the South. Liberty Hall was built at 44 Cedar Street in 1871 to serve as home to the bank. Despite local successes, federal mismanagement and corruption led to the closure of all branches in 1874. In 1909, another African-American bank, the People’s Savings Bank and Trust Co., opened at 410 Cedar Street.

Location: 321 Dr. M.L.K. Jr. Blvd.
Number 196
Erected 2019

Germantown Brewery District

Germantown was home to many 19th-cen. European immigrants who brought their trade skills to Nashville, including brewing. By 1865 Germantown was home to 4 breweries: North Nashville Brewery (C. Kreig); Rock City Brewery (F. Kuhn); Cumberland Brewery (J. Ritter); and City Brewery (F. Leitenberger). By the 1870s all of these breweries had closed due to the success of J. Stiefel’s S. Nashville Brewing Co. and shipments from Midwestern breweries via iced rail cars and riverboats.

Donated by the Mertie Family

Location: Madison St. at 5th Ave N
Number 179
Erected 2018

Germantown Historic District

European immigrants established Germantown, the first suburb in North Nashville, in the 1850s. Large brick townhouses stood next to modest workers’ cottages, illustrating the area’s economic and social diversity. World War I and changes in public attitude began decades of decline. Renovation projects at two historic churches began the neighborhood’s revitalization in the 1970s. Germantown became a National Register Historic District in 1979.

Location: NW corner of Jefferson St and 6th Ave. North
Number 114
Erected 2003

Gerst House

William J. Gerst opened the Gerst House restaurant in 1955, a year after the Wm. Gerst Brewing Co. closed. Serving German-American food, it was a gathering place for attorneys, journalists and politicians due to its proximity to the courthouse. Bill died in 1968; his daughter, Gene Ritter, continued the tradition. In 1970, urban development forced the Gerst House to move across the river. After Gene's death in 1988, it was sold and renamed the "Gerst Haus." It closed in 2018.

Location: Union Street at Second Avenue North (Public Square)
Number 235
Erected 2021

Girls Scouts of Middle Tennessee

In 1917, five years after Girl Scouts was founded in Savannah, Ga., the first troops were formed in Nashville. By 1927 there were enough troops and community support to join the national organization as the Nashville Girl Scout Council. The first headquarters was built in 1964 at 830 Kirkwood Ave. and moved to Granny White Pike in 1991. Now called Girl Scouts of Middle Tenn., they still strive to build girls of courage, confidence and character who make the world a better place.

Location: Battery Lane at Granny White Pike
Number 200
Erected 2019

Glendale Park

Here, near the center of a 64-acre woodland amusement park owned by the Nashville Railway and Light Co., the Glendale streetcar line turned back toward town. The park opened in 1888 to attract passengers for the railway—originally steam, electric after 1893. A zoo was added in 1912. The park closed in 1921, a casualty of automobiles and the Depression.

Location: Lealand Lane at Tower Place
Number 21
Erected: 1970

Glenn School

Named for Davidson County Judge and former Edgefield mayor William A. Glenn (1805-1883), the two-story, brick Glenn School opened in 1904. On September 9, 1957, three African American first grade students desegregated the school. An agitated, jeering mob of white segregationists jostled students and parents. Members of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) visited area parents, supporting those already enrolled and encouraging others to join them. The school was replaced in 1988.

In Brown v. Topeka (1954) and Brown II (1955) the U.S. Supreme Court ordered public schools nationwide to end racial segregation “with all deliberate speed.” Nashville failed to comply, resulting in the Kelley v. Board of Education case (1955) and the 1957 enactment of a grade-per-year plan starting at the first grade. In 1963, the Maxwell v. Davidson County (1960) case was merged with the Kelley case. In 1998, the court deemed the Metro school system to be desegregated.

Location: 322 Cleveland Street
Number 223
Erected 2020

Goodlettsville High School

In 1850, Peyton Roscoe donated seven acres of land here to build a male and a female academy. A co-educational elementary school replaced the 1850 buildings in 1910, with a high school to follow in 1920. Classes were held in tents and a frame house from 1917 until the building was completed. In 1937 a gymnasium was added, and a new main building in 1945. Additional expansions occurred from 1951-60. Converted to a middle school in 1986, the building was razed in 2015.

Location: 300 South Main Street, Goodlettsville
Number 265
Erected 2023

Grandale

Built in the 1830s, rebuilt in 1859, and expanded in 1880, Perry Dale Sr. and Alberta G. Dale purchased this two-story frame house in 1946, naming it GranDale. The one-story wings were added to each side in the 1970s. Between 1972 and 1973, Perry Sr. sold the house and the Dale Foods canning factory (now Cannery Row) to his two sons. The Dale sons sold GranDale in 1983, and in 1997 the house was moved 60 ft. from the original location at 2234 Murfreesboro Pike to save it from demolition.

Location: 200 Nashboro Blvd.
Number 163
Erected 2018

Granny White Grave

Lucinda “Granny” White of N.C. acquired 50 acres of land near Brown’s Creek on January 2, 1803. In 1812, she opened a log tavern about 200 feet north of here near an old spring. Famous for its food and hospitality, Granny White’s inn stood along a stagecoach road that connected to the Natchez Trace. She was buried here on her land in 1816. Granny White Pike was named after her in 1855. The D.A.R. Gen. James Robertson Chapter restored her grave and added iron fencing in 1932.

Location: Travelers Ridge Drive off of Granny White Pike
Number 28
Erected 1970

Grassmere

Col. Michael C. Dunn, a landowner and Sheriff, built a home in the Federal style ca. 1810. A grandson-in-law, William D. Shute, received the farm in 1859 and named it Grassmere. Intact following the Civil War, the house was renovated and an Italianate porch added ca. 1880. Margaret and Elise Croft 5th generation descendants, lived here until their deaths. Wishing to preserve the
farm, the sisters gave it to future generations as a “nature study center.”

Location: 3777 Nolensville Road
Number 108
Erected 2001

The Harpeth Hall School

On September 17, 1951, Harpeth Hall opened as an independent girls’ college preparatory school on the former P.M. Estes estate. Susan Souby headed the first school of 161 girls. Originating with Ward Seminary (1865-1913); Belmont College for Young Women (1890-1913); and the Ward Belmont School (1913-1951), Harpeth Hall continued Nashville’s tradition of superior single-gender education. Motto: Let us lift up the mind and spirit.

Location: 3801 Hobbs Road
Number 113
Erected 2003

Hank Snow's Rainbow Ranch

Clarence Eugene “Hank” Snow purchased this Madison home with his wife Minnie in 1950, not long after his first appearance on the Grand Ole Opry. He was one of the first musicians in the United States to build and use a home studio. Snow’s band, the Rainbow Ranch Boys, took their name from this three-acre property, Rainbow Ranch, which was also home to Snow’s horse, Shawnee. Snow was elected to Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1978 and the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1979.

Location: 312 East Marthona Road
Number 254
Erected 2023

Hattie Cotton Elementary School

Named for beloved Nashville educator Hattie R. Cotton (1859-1926), the original Hattie Cotton Elementary School was built in 1950 to serve the white population west of Gallatin Pike. Local architects Marr and Holman designed the modern building. On September 9, 1957, the school was desegregated by an African American first grader. At 12:33 a.m. September 10, the school was dynamited and sustained extensive damage. It re-opened within a week. The bombing culprits remain unidentified.

In Brown v. Topeka (1954) and Brown II (1955) the U.S. Supreme Court ordered public schools nationwide to end racial segregation “with all deliberate speed.” Nashville failed to comply, resulting in the Kelley v. Board of Education case (1955) and the 1957 enactment of a grade-per-year plan starting at the first grade. In 1963, the Maxwell v. Davidson County (1960) case was merged with the Kelley case. In 1998, the court deemed the Metro school system to be desegregated.

Location: 1033 West Greenwood Avenue
Number 220
Erected 2020

HCA Healthcare

In 1968, Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) was founded by Dr. Thomas Frist Sr., his son Dr. Thomas Frist Jr., and businessman Jack C. Massey. The original office was located here, in a small house near HCA’s first hospital—Park View. At the time, it was one of the nation’s first hospital companies. With a mission to care for and improve human life, the Nashville-based company, now called HCA Healthcare, has grown into one of the nation’s largest healthcare services providers.

Location: Parman Place at 25th Ave N
Number 162
Erected 2018

Heaton's Station

Heaton’s Station (also called Old Heaton Station, Eaton Station, and Heatonsburg) was founded by Amos Heaton after arriving here with James Robertson in December 1779. Stations founded by others in the surrounding area included: Fort Union, Freelands, Nashborough, Stones River, Mansker, Asher, and Bledsoe. By 1783, only two stations remained, Heaton and Nashborough. The Heaton family moved west in 1786 to New Heaton Station, along the present-day Eaton Creek area of Whites Creek.

Location: Lock No. 1 Road at end of Seminary Avenue
Number 1
Erected 1968

Hell’s Half Acre

North and west of the State Capitol was an area city reformers called “Hell’s Half Acre.” Home to immigrants and free and enslaved Blacks, it was a part of a red-light district before, during and after the Civil War. Line St. (now Jo Johnston Ave.) included brothels, bars and secret gambling houses, but the area was also home to a rich African-American culture. Razed as part of the Capitol Hill redevelopment plan in the 1950s, its residents relocated to other parts of the city.

Location: James Robertson Pkwy. at 6th Ave N
Number 190
Erected 2020

Hill Forest

In 1910, H.G. Hill, Sr. purchased this 324 acres including an old-growth forest west of downtown Nashville. He refused to allow the trees to be sold for timber, and fenced the forest to keep his cattle from damaging the centuries-old trees. Hill enjoyed its pristine beauty throughout his lifetime. In 2009, the Friends of Warner Parks purchased the land from the Hill family, ensuring that this ancient forest in an urban setting will continue to be preserved.

Location: Warner Parks
Number 138
Erected 2010

Hillsboro High School

Hillsboro High School was built in 1939 to serve rural students between Bellevue and Antioch. It is named for Hillsboro Pike, which runs along the western boundary of the school property. In 1952, following a complete renovation, the school was destroyed by a fire. Edwin Keeble designed the current mid-century modern building in 1954. The school was expanded, and the iconic clock added, in 1958. The campus was renovated in 1995, and another renovation was started in 2018.

Location: 3812 Hillsboro Pike
Number 204
Erected 2020

Hillsboro Toll Gate No. 1

Ten yards north stood toll gate and toll gate house erected by Nashville and Hillsboro Turnpike Co., Incorporated in 1848. Charges to travel macadamized road could not exceed: horse or mule, 3¢; 10 sheep, 20¢; 20 meat cattle, 25¢; carriage drawn by pair of horses or mules, 25¢. Toll removed in 1903. Toll gate house, enlarged, stands 20 yds. northwest.

Location: Lawn of fire department near Hillsboro Road and Blair Boulevard
Number 34
Erected: 1970

Hillwood Estates

In 1910, Horace Greeley Hill, Sr. and wife Mamie began buying land around their West Nashville home Cliff Lawn. After Hill Sr., an entrepreneur and philanthropist, died in 1942, H.G. Hill, Jr. took over the family business and began developing that land into the Hillwood Estates subdivision. The neighborhood includes an elementary and high school, both named for Hill, as well as the Hillwood Country Club and Hillwood Presbyterian Church, for which Hill Jr. donated land.

Location: Davidson Rd. at Post Rd.
Number 198
Erected 2019

Historic Bellevue

Belle Vue was the name Abraham Louis DeMoss gave the land he bought overlooking the Harpeth River in 1800. His gristmill and sawmill stood nearby. When the Nashville-Northwestern Railroad cut its line to Kingston Springs in 1855, Bellevue became the hub of this area with a railroad depot, blacksmith shop and livery stable. In 1866 T.L. Herrin opened a general store and post office to the north. A two-story frame pre-railroad storage building now houses Bellevue Lodge No. 716.

Location: 7420 Old Harding Pike
Number 197
Erected 2019

History of Edgehill

Edgehill’s history dates from the decades before the Civil War, when country estates were located on and around Meridian Hill, now E.S. Rose Park. The construction and defense of Union fortifications during the Civil War drew many African Americans to the area, where they contributed to the Union victory and the end of enslavement. After the Civil War, they built the free communities of “New Bethel” and “Rocktown” that developed during the twentieth century into Edgehill.

Location: 1000 Edgehill Avenue
Number 227
Erected 2020

Holly Street Fire Hall

{double-sided}

Completed in 1914, J.B. Richardson Engine Company No. 14 was designed by Nashville’s first city architect, James B. Yeaman. Designed to blend in with the surrounding residential neighborhood, it was the first fire hall in the city built specifically for motorized fire trucks. Except for short periods during renovations, this fire hall has been in continuous use since its construction, and was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

Location: 1602 Holly St.
Number 149
Erected 2013

Houston's Law Office

Sam Houston, a native of Virginia, moved to Nashville in 1818 to study law with Judge James Trimble. Admitted to the bar later that year, Houston practiced in Lebanon, Tenn., before returning to Nashville to serve as District Attorney (1819-21). In 1821, he opened a law office near this site. He was elected a U.S. Congressman (1823-27), Governor of Tenn. (1827-29), and President of the Republic of Texas (1836-38).

Donated by the Nashville Bar Association in 1999.

Location: 2nd Ave. North at the Criminal Justice Center
Number 106
Erected 1999

Hyde's Ferry Turnpike

Here was toll-gate number 2 of the Hyde’s Ferry Turnpike Co., chartered in 1848 to build a road from Nashville to Ashland City and Sycamore Hills. Richard Hyde’s ferry crossed the Cumberland 2.6 m. southeast, where the railroad bridge is now. Davidson County paid $10,000 for its part of the road in 1901. Cheatham County bought its portion and freed it from tolls in 1916.

Location: Hyde’s Ferry Rd and Cato Rd.
Number 46
Erected 1971

J. W. Price Fire Hall

Constructed in 1892 for Hose Company number 1, this building is one of the earliest extant fire halls in Nashville. The upstairs housed firefighters while the lower floor stabled the company’s two horses. R. C. Burk served as the first Captain. The fire hall was renamed for J.W. Price, a local businessman, c.1910. In 1993, the building reopened as a branch of the Nashville Public Library, and is named for State Legislators Charles and Mary Pruitt.

Location: 117 Charles E. Davis Blvd.
Number 143
Erected 2011

Jack Clement Recording Studios

After success in Memphis with Sun Records, “Cowboy” Jack Clement founded Jack Clement Recording Studios in 1969, producing and writing for artists such as Johnny Cash and Charley Pride. It was the first facility of its kind in Nashville, with interiors designed by Jim Tilton. Sold in 1979 and renamed Sound Emporium, artists such as Kenny Rogers, Dottie West, Ray Stevens, Don Williams, John Denver, R.E.M., Robert Plant and Alison Krauss have recorded here.

Location: 3011 Belmont Blvd.
Number 152
Erected 2013

Jackson's Law Office

Andrew Jackson settled in Nashville in 1788 and served as Atty. Gen. until 1796. Lawyer John Overton owned a building here (1791-96) and shared office space with his friend Jackson. Jackson was Tennessee’s first Rep. to Congress (1796) and state Superior Court judge (1798-1804). He led U.S. troops to victory at the 1815 Battle of New Orleans and was elected President in 1828.

Donated by the Nashville Bar Association

Location: 333 Union Street (wall marker)
Number 98
Erected 1996

Johnson's Station

In 1783, the State of North Carolina granted Cumberland Compact signer Isaac Johnson 640 ac. on Richland Creek. He settled near Johnson’s Lick, a spring on a buffalo path to the southwest. By 1787, a double log house and partially picketed cabins named Johnson’s Station stood here as a fort and tax collection site. Vacated in January 1789, the station burned five months later. Charles Bosley, a wealthy member of the Nickajack Expedition and plantation owner, settled here in 1818.

Location: 4200 block Harding Pike (near entrance to Dominican Campus)
Number 18
Erected 1969

Jones School

Named for long-time North Nashville principal R.W. Jones (1849-1933), Jones School opened in 1936 to replace the old Buena Vista School. Four African American first graders desegregated the school on September 9, 1957. A crowd of white segregationists taunted them, and many white parents removed their students from the school. Members of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) visited parents in the area, supporting those already enrolled and encouraging others to join them.

In Brown v. Topeka (1954) and Brown II (1955) the U.S. Supreme Court ordered public schools nationwide to end racial segregation “with all deliberate speed.” Nashville failed to comply, resulting in the Kelley v. Board of Education case (1955) and the 1957 enactment of a grade-per-year plan starting at the first grade. In 1963, the Maxwell v. Davidson County (1960) case was merged with the Kelley case. In 1998, the court deemed the Metro school system to be desegregated.

Location: 1800 9th Avenue North
Number 224
Erected 2020

Joy Floral Company

In 1882, T.S. and T.C. Joy, founders of Joy and Son floral co. (est. 1877), bought 91 acres east of Lischey Ave. for their greenhouse operations, including the Gen. White home and White-Ogden Cemetery. The Joys built a large greenhouse (1886) and two brick dwellings along Lischey c. 1890. One of the South’s largest florists, Joy Floral Co. opened retail shops and wholesale depts. in Chattanooga (1915) and Atlanta (1920). By 1938, the company had nearly all female leadership.

Location: 1431 Lischey Ave
Number 174
Erected 2018

The Jungle and Juanita’s "Nashville's First Gay Bars"

Warren Jett opened The Jungle, a restaurant and cocktail bar, at 715 Commerce Street in 1952. Next door, Juanita Brazier opened Juanita's Place, a beer bar, in 1956. By the early 1960s, both were known as the first gay bars in Nashville. Jett sold The Jungle in 1960, after his brother, Leslie E. Jett, was elected sheriff. In 1963, 27 men were arrested for “disorderly behavior” in a raid at Juanita’s. Gay men continued to gather at both bars until 1983, when the block was leveled.

Location: 700 block Commerce St.
Number 184
Erected 2018

Kenner Manor Historic District

Originally part of the Woodlawn estate, this property was subdivided in 1916 by Duncan Kenner and the Kenner Manor Land Company. Many houses on Kenner Avenue and Woodmont Circle were built in the 1920s, and in 1929 the Clearview Subdivision was platted on Crescent Road and Clearview Drive. The neighborhood’s early-20th-century homes retain much of their original character. The Kenner Manor Historic District was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2016.

Location: Kenner Ave. at Woodmont Cir.
Number 183
Erected 2019

Lake Providence Community

Soon after the Civil War, freed slave families established farms and dairies in this community named for Lake Providence Missionary Baptist Church. The church was founded in 1868 by Rev. Larry A. Thompson, a traveling missionary. The first church building and school stood nearby. Many roads in this area are named for African-American settlers.

Location: 4500 block Nolensville Road
Number 99
Erected 1996

Lock 2 Park

In 1888, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sought to make water travel on the Cumberland River easier by regulating water levels with a series of dams and locks. Construction on Lock 2 began in 1892, and the lock and dam were finished in 1907. The project ended in 1924 with only 15 of the planned 26 locks completed. Leased to Metro Parks since 1956, Lock 2 Park still contains the lock keeper's house, several outbuildings, a lock wall, and a river gauge on the concrete steps.

Location: Lock 2 Park, 2699 Lock 2 Rd.
Number 215
Erected 2020

Lockeland Spring

Located 250 yds. S.E., this famous pioneer spring served Lockeland mansion on site of present school building. Home built by Col. Robert Weakley in early 1800’s and named for his wife, daughter of Gen. Matthew Locke of Salisbury, N.C. Spring water won prize at St. Louis Exposition in 1904, for its “unique mineral composition and salubrious quality.”

Location: 100 South 17th St.
Number 24
Erected 1970

Locust Hill

Located near Mill Creek, Locust Hill is one of the earliest brick homes in Middle Tennessee. Built c. 1805, it was home to the Charles Hays family until after the Civil War. The Federal-style house features intricately carved mantles and millwork, and impressive faux-wood graining techniques. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

Location: 834 Reeves Rd.
Number 165
Erected 2018

Logue House “Logue Haven”

In 1786, the State of North Carolina deeded this land as part of a 640 acre grant to Revolutionary War Private and land surveyor James Mulherin. The c. 1920 stone American Foursquare dwelling was home to Gilbert Stroud Logue and Emma McEwan Logue. Gilbert was a professional Southern Circuit bicycle racer, a Scottish Rite 32nd degree Mason, and an investor in multiple businesses. Emma, a founding member of the Lebanon Road Garden Club, often hosted meetings at this estate.

Location: Lebanon Pike at Cottage Ln.
Number 181
Erected 2019

Loveless Cafe

In 1951, Lon and Annie Loveless began serving fried chicken, biscuits and jams at picnic tables to hungry travelers from Highway 100, then the main road between Nashville and Memphis. They soon converted their 4-room home into a restaurant, added the 14-room Loveless Motel, a smokehouse and the iconic neon sign. Known for scratch-made Southern meals using recipes passed down by Lon and Annie, The Loveless Cafe remains a staple that welcomes over half a million guests each year.

Location: 8400 TN-100
Number 211
Erected 2019

Luke Lea Heights

Luke Lea (1879-1945) envisioned this park, gave to the city in 1927 the original 868 acres, and asked that the land be named for his father-in-law, Percy Warner. Founder of the Nashville Tennessean, Lea was a key developer of Belle Meade, a U.S. senator, organizer and colonel of the 114th Field Artillery, WWI.
To honor him the Park Board named a high hill and overlook Lea Heights.

Location: Belle Meade Bv at Warner Park entrance
Number 86
Erected 1990

Lynching of Samuel Smith

{double-sided}

The last known or recorded lynching in Davidson County took place in 1924 near this site. Around midnight on December 14, 1924, a mob of at least six armed, white, masked men entered Nashville General Hospital and abducted Samuel Smith, age 15. The men quickly identified Smith, who was in police custody and chained to his bed. Nurse Amy Weagle attempted to hide the chain in an effort to thwart the abduction. In the early hours of December 15, the mob drove Smith to Frank Hill Road, now Old Burkett Road, near the site of the alleged robbery and shooting that led to his arrest. The mob stripped Smith of his pajamas, hung him from a tree with a thin rope, and shot him multiple times. Despite a grand jury investigation, public outcry and a reward offer in local newspapers, no one was ever arrested, charged or held accountable for the murder of Samuel Smith. This act of racial terror was meant not only to punish Smith for his alleged crimes, but to intimidate the local African American community and reinforce the racial hierarchy through violence. Though passed down for generations in the community, this story has now been spoken of openly in an effort toward reconciliation.

Location: 7200 Old Burkitt Road
Number 238
Erected 2021

Madison College

Madison College was founded in 1904 as Nashville Agricultural Normal Institute by Seventh-Day Adventists on a farm of 412 acres. A sanitarium and campus industries were integral to the plan of work and study for students training for careers in agriculture, teaching, religion, industrial arts, nursing and allied health courses, and other fields.

Location: Hospital Drive, off of Neely’s Bend Road, Madison
Number 29
Erected 1970

Mansker's First Fort

Here on west bank of the creek that he discovered on 1772, Kasper Mansker and other first settlers built a log fort in 1779. John Donelson’s family fled here in 1780 for safety from Indians. Mansker abandoned the fort in 1781 and moved to Fort Nashborough. He returned in 1783, built a stronger stockade on east bank of the creek a half mile upstream, and lived here until he died in 1820.

Location: Goodlettsville on Long Hollow Pike near Moss Wright Park
Number 72
Erected 1981

Marathon Motor Works

This Italianate-style 1881 factory first housed the Nashville Cotton Mills, which built the middle section c. 1885. It became Phoenix Cotton Mills in 1894. In 1910 Southern Motor Works of Jackson, Tenn. moved in, becoming Marathon Motor Works in 1911. The final portion of the plant and an elegant office and showroom across Clinton St. were built in 1912. Marathon made vehicles in Jackson (1907-1910) and here (1910-1914). It operated as a parts and service business until 1918.

In 1906, William H. Collier, engineer at Southern Engine and Boiler Works in Jackson, Tenn. designed the “Southern” car, renamed “Marathon” after a 1909 contest. Marathon Motor Works’ roadsters, touring cars, coupes, limousines, and trucks were sold worldwide with four-cylinder engines ranging from 20-45 hp. The “Marathon” was the first car entirely manufactured in the South. In 1986, Barry L. Walker began redeveloping the complex into a creative community called Marathon Village.

Location: 1254 Clinton St.
Number 194
Erected 2019

May Hosiery Mills

In 1897, Jacob May and his family moved to Nashville and opened the Rock City Hosiery Mill. May obtained a contract to use convict labor for his mill, located inside the state penitentiary on Church Street. In 1908, May incorporated the company under a new name—May Hosiery Mills—and opened a new location next to the Louisville and Nashville railroad terminal on Brown St. in South Nashville. Jacob ran the mill with the help of his sons, Mortimer and Dan, until his death in 1946.

In the early 20th century, the mill was among the largest employers in Nashville. It employed many Jewish refugees the May family helped flee Nazi Germany in the 1930s. For much of the mill’s 88 years, its hundreds of employees, mostly women, manufactured a million socks a week. The factory supplied major department stores nationwide and made the socks worn by the NASA Apollo 11 crew. The mill ceased operations in 1985 and has since served as space for artists and businesses.

Location: 429 Chestnut St.
Number 188
Erected 2019

May-Granbury House and Alford Cemetery

Revolutionary War Pvt. John Alford built a two-room house on this land c. 1810, expanding it in 1812 and 1820. The Alford cemetery retains three markers that were placed as early as 1822. The c.1830 brick two-story Federal dwelling was home to James F. May, grandson of Knoxville founder Gen. James White. May purchased the land in 1837 and resided here until his death. James T. Granbery inherited and restored the house in 1939, and established Seven Springs Farm on the estate.

Location: Hill Rd. at Granbery Park Dr.
Number 168
Erected 2018

McConnell Field

In 1927 the City bought 131 acres from Warren Sloan and made this the Nashville airport, named for Lieut. Brower McConnell, Tennessee National Guard pilot who died that year in an air crash. The hangars were 50 yards east. Aircraft outgrew the field in the 1930s and moved to Sky Harbor and Berry Field. The Park Board began the golf course in 1939.

Location: Murphy Rd. by clubhouse in McCabe Park
Number 33
Erected 1970

Meharry Medical College

The nation’s largest, private, independent historically black academic health science center was established in 1876, as the medical department of Central Tennessee College. Founded through the generosity of Samuel Meharry and his brothers and the efforts of Drs. George W. Hubbard and William Sneed, Rev. John Braden and the Freeman’s Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church (now the United Methodist Church), the school received its independent charter in 1915, training in medicine, dentistry, nursing and pharmacy. It moved from its original location in south Nashville to this location in 1923. Dr. Harold D. West became the school’s first African American president in 1952. As of 2010, over 10,000 Meharry alumni have served as physicians, nurses, pharmacists, researchers, and public health advocates.

Location: Meharry Medical College, D.B. Todd Boulvard entrance
Number 19
Erected 1969

Merritt House

Gibson Merritt (1800-1873) came to Nashville around 1815 from North Carolina and worked as a farmer and cabinetmaker. Merritt married Sarah Raines (1793-1861) in 1828, and by 1850 he owned 44 acres and eleven enslaved persons. This c. 1870 two-story Italianate house was home to their son, state senator Alfred Gowen Merritt (1832-1908) and his wife Caroline Donelson (1841-1922) by 1880. The rear portion contains a log cabin that may date to the 1780s and the Rains family.

Location: 441 Humphreys Street
Number 255
Erected 2023

Montgomery Bell Academy

Formerly established in 1867 with a bequest of $20,000 by ironmaster Montgomery Bell, the roots of M.B.A. actually go back to 1785, with the University of Nashville, Cumberland College, and Davidson Academy. The boy’s preparatory school has been here since 1915, when the Board of Trustees purchased Totomoi, the estate of Garland Tinsley.

Location: 4001 Harding Pike
Number 54

Erected 1975

Mount Pisgah Community

In 1867, Jane Watson deeded land to several African-American families, many of them her former slaves. First called Watson Town, the community became known as Mt. Pisgah by 1871. The Methodist Episcopal Church North organized a church here in 1866 and bought an acre of land from William Holt in 1869 for a church and school building. The second church building, used 1916-1976, stood along the Owen and Winstead Pike, now Edmondson Pike.

Donated by the Mt. Pisgah United Methodist Church.

Location: 6245 Mount Pisgah Road
Number 107
Erected 2001

Mud Tavern

The Mud Tavern Community developed around the crossroads of the Elm Hill and McGavock Turnpikes. The name derives from the mud and log inn at the crossroads where early 19th century travelers found rest and refreshment. Mud Tavern later became a lively rural community, with a railway stop, schools, post office, and general store, which thrived until overtaken by 20th century commercial development.

Location: 2200 Elm Hill Pike
Number 131
Erected 2008

Music Row

The heart of Nashville’s music business, Music Row began in 1955, when Owen Bradley opened the Quonset Hut, the first recording studio here. In 1957, Chet Akins opened RCA’s studio at the corner of 17th and Hawkins. Other studios, publishing houses, and record labels including Columbia, Epic, Decca, Warner Bros, Capitol, and Curb followed with offices here. Street names were changed in 1975 to Music Square East and West.

Donated by Mike Curb Family Foundation

Location: Owen Bradley Park, 1 Music Square East
Number 156
Erected 2016

Myhr House “Maple Row”

In 1906, Norwegian-born Andres Ivarson Myhr and wife Minnie Bolton Myhr acquired land from Tabitha DeMoss and built “Maple Row,” named for trees planted along the driveway. Part of Myhr Farm, this was the first house in Bellevue to have indoor running water, electricity and central air. Dr. Myhr was State Evangelist and Secretary of the Tenn. Missionary Society for 20 years. He served as pastor of Bellevue Christian Church (1883 to 1933), that met here after the church burned.

Location: Myhr Green at Bradford Green
Number 214
Erected 2019

Nashville Academy of Medicine

The Nashville Medical Society, the first medical association in Tennessee, was founded March 5, 1821, by seven physicians in the log courthouse on the Public Square. The first president was Dr. Felix Robertson (1781-1865), son of James and Charlotte Robertson and two-time Nashville mayor. On September 4, 1906, the organization was chartered by the State of Tennessee as the Nashville Academy of Medicine and Davidson County Medical Society.

Location: 205 23rd Ave. N
Number 61
Erected 1975

Nashville Centennial 1780-1880

On April 24, 1880, Nashville began a month-long celebration of 100 years since the signing of the Cumberland Compact. Starting with a 100-gun salute at the Capitol, a procession of dignitaries, veterans, businesses and community groups paraded to the Centennial Exposition building here. The evening featured speeches, music and a grand display of fireworks. Vendors sold Centennial Medals bearing the likeness of the recently dedicated Capitol statue of Pres. Andrew Jackson.

Location: SW corner of intersection of Broadway and 8th Avenue.
Number 14
Erected 1969

Nashville Fire Department

The city’s first fire-fighting force of volunteers was formed in May 1807. The first paid Dept. was organized on July 29, 1860, with J.S. Dashiell as chief. Three horse-drawn steam engines were bought. A telegraph alarm was installed in 1875. Chief A.A. Rozetta used the first auto November 21 1910. First gasoline driven engines were used September 1912.

Location: 506 2nd Ave N
Number 36
Erected 1970

Nashville General Hospital

City Hospital opened here on April 23, 1890 with a capacity of 60 beds. Dr. Charles Brower of the University of Nashville Medical Department was Superintendent. In 1891, a school of nursing opened with Charlotte E. Perkins as Superintendent. This was the first training school for nurses between the Ohio River and New Orleans. In 1998, Metropolitan Nashville General Hospital moved to the Meharry Medical College campus and began operating as Nashville General Hospital at Meharry.

Location: Middleton Street at Academy Place
Number 48
Erected 1971

Nashville Plow Works

Site of a farm implement factory operated by Messrs. Sharp and Hamilton, previous to the War Between the States. With the outbreak of hostilities they reversed the Biblical injunction and produced swords of excellent quality for the Confederacy. With the coming of the Federal Army, the making of swords was discontinued.

Location: SE corner of 8th Ave S and Palmer Place
Number 4
Erected 1968

Nashville Porter and Ale Brewery

In 1815, T.M. Burland opened a small brewery 1.5 miles west of Nashville along Cockrill Spring. The brewery used water from the nearby spring and barley purchased from local farmers. J.T. and W.B. Smith operated the brewery from 1834 until it was purchased by P. Jonte and J.B. Bergerot in 1838. The brewery closed in 1841. Coincidently, S. Weins and K. Taylor co-founded the Blackstone Brewery near this location in 1994, on the same tract of land as the Porter and Ale Brewery.

Donated by the Mertie Family

Location: 1901 Charlotte Ave.
Number 186
Erected 2019

The Nashville Race Course

The Nashville Race Course, the “Burns Island Track,” 1828-1884, was .6 of a mile north. Here October 10, 1843, was run the then richest race in the world, the $35,000 Peyton Stakes, 4 mile heats, promoted by Bailie Peyton. The winner owned by Thomas Kirkman, was renamed “Peytona.” Ten Broeck and Thora also raced here.

Location: East end of Clay St. near Bush’s Lake
Number 8
Erected 1968

Nashville School of Law

Founded in 1911 by the Young Men’s Christian Association, the Nashville YMCA Night Law School was created to make legal education accessible to working-class people. The School shared space on the 3rd floor of the YMCA at 7th and Union with the John Hill Eakin Educational Institute and moved to the basement of the Church St. YMCA before moving to its own campus in 1991. Renamed the Nashville School of Law in 1986, it is the only remaining independent law school created by the YMCA.

Location: 814 Church St.
Number 195
Erected 2019

Nashville Sit-Ins

Formerly located at this site was First Baptist Church, Capitol Hill, headquarters of the 1960s Sit-In Movement, led by Rev. Kelly Miller Smith. Strategy sessions, non-violence workshops, mass meetings, victory celebrations, and administrative office were here. The well-disciplined Nashville sit-ins served as a model for civil rights demonstrations throughout the South.

Location: 8th Ave N and Charlotte Pike
Number 87
Erected 1992

Nashville YMCA

On May 18, 1875, members of several Nashville churches gathered at the Christian Church (138 Vine Street) after a religious revival meeting and organized the Nashville Young Men’s Christian Association. Its first building, erected in 1886 on Church Street between Cherry and College, was destroyed by a fire in 1894. In 1912, it moved to its new eight-story building on Seventh and Union, which it occupied until 1972 when it moved to its present building, 1000 Church Street.

Location:1000 Church St.
Number 60
Erected 1975

Nashville's First Public School

Nashville’s first public school, Hume School, opened here February 26, 1855. A three story brick building, the school employed 12 teachers and served all grades. In 1874 high school classes were moved to Fogg school built on adjoining corner lot. Named for educators, Alfred E. Hume and Francis B. Fogg, the schools were replaced by Hume-Fogg in 1912.

Location: Hume-Fogg front lawn facing Broadway, near 8th Avenue
Number 12
Erected 1969

Nashville's First Radio Station

June 1922, Boy Scout John H. DeWitt, Jr., started Nashville’s first radio station (WDAA) on the Ward-Belmont Campus. Assisted by music teacher G.S. deLuca, he broadcast Enrico Caruso records to the opening of the River and Rail Terminal on the river at Broad Street. DeWitt was WSM radio station’s chief engineer, 1932-1942, and president, 1947-1968.

Location: Belmont University Campus, Freeman Hall
Number 101
Erected 1997

Nettie Napier Day Home Club

Nettie Langston Napier had a Day Home Club on this site by 1907. It provided childcare, meals, education and healthcare for the children of poor, working African American mothers. Napier appointed a vice president for each of the city’s wards, each responsible for soliciting funds and donations. The wife of prominent banker, lawyer and public figure James C. Napier, Nettie Langston Napier was a talented musician, avid social activist and member of the women’s club movement.

Location: 614 4th Ave S
Number 181
Erected 2019

Newsom's Mill

The original Newsom’s Mill was located upstream and was destroyed by flood in 1808. Joseph M. Newsom constructed this turbine-powered gristmill in 1862 of hand-dressed limestone cut from Newsom’s Quarry, a mile south. Newsom’s stone is found in many important buildings in the city of Nashville.

Location: Hwy 70 and Newsom Station Rd
Number 62
Erected: 1976

North Nashville High School

Located 1100 Clay Street, North Nashville High School opened in 1940. Designed by Hart and Russell, the building was constructed with funding from the Public Works Administration, and featured carved stone panels by sculptor Puryear Mims. The first class graduated in 1941. Four principals served North High: J. H. Noel, W.J. Mullins, L.L. Carnes, and R.W. Elliot. The final commencement was held June 8, 1978. North High was demolished in 1987.

Location: 1000 Cass Street
Number 154
Erected 2013

Odom’s Tennessee Pride

In 1943, with a $1000 loan from a friend, Douglas G. Odom, Sr., his wife Louise, and their children—Doug Jr., Richard, Judy, and June—started a four-hog a day sausage business. Before selling the company in 2012, the three-generation family-owned business was one of the largest independent sausage manufacturers in America. The iconic farmboy and slogan, "Take Home a Package of Tennessee Pride," were regular features on Grand Ole Opry television broadcasts starting in 1956.

Location: 1145 Neelys Bend Rd.
Number 172
Erected 2018

Oglesby Community House

Built 1898, the Mary Lee Academy, the second school in the Oglesby Community, was named for its first teacher, Miss Mary Lee Clark. The county bought the school in 1906. The name changed to Ogilvie in honor of the land donor, Benton H. Ogilvie, and later became Oglesby. In 1943, the schoolhouse was given back to the Oglesby Community.

Location: Old Hickory Blvd and Edmondson Pike
Number 82
Erected 1982

Old Hickory Powder Plant

Site of the $87,000,000 Old Hickory Powder Plant built and operated in 1918 by the E.I. DuPont deNemours co., for the United States Government, to make smokeless gunpowder for the Allied Armies in World War I. By the time of the Armistice November 11, 1918, the plant, 75% complete, was producing 750,000 lbs of powder every 24 hours.

Location: Old Hickory, Swinging Bridge Rd and Cinder Rd
Number 30
Erected 1970

Old Hickory Triangle

This intersection, known as “The Triangle,” served as the commercial core of Old Hickory from the 1920s through the 1940s. A variety of shops were located here, including a grocery, bank, general store, barber shop, restaurants, and doctors’ offices, as well as the bus station and YMCA. The Public Works Administration built the Colonial Revival Post Office in 1934-35.

Location: Old Hickory Village Triangle
Number 110
Erected 2002

Old Hickory Works

In January 1918, the area known as Hadley’s Bend was purchased by the U.S. government to build a smokeless gunpowder factory to supply the Allied troops during World War I. The contract for the plant—called Old Hickory Works—was awarded to DuPont Co. Over 7 miles of rail were laid to connect the plant to Hermitage Station, bringing in about 31,000 passengers daily. The almost 5,000 acre property started at the Cumberland River and reached to what is now the Hermitage Golf Course.

Location: Old Hickory Blvd. at Montchanin Dr.
Number 173
Erected 2020

The Old Woman’s Home

On December 17, 1891, the Tenn. legislature granted a charter establishing the Old Woman’s Home “for the care and protection of aged and helpless women.” In 1909, the women moved from 136 Cherry St. (4th Ave) to a new home at 2817 West End Ave. Later renamed The West End Home for Ladies, it was home to hundreds of elderly women until it was demolished in 1984. The West End Home Foundation continues this legacy of enriching the lives of older adults through grantmaking and advocacy.

Location: 2817 West End Ave.
Number 177
Erected 2018

Paradise Ridge

Named for the Paradise brothers, early settlers from North Carolina, this ridge was home to the Joelton Air Force Station from 1956-61, when the 799th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron operated here as a part of the integrated continental defense system against aerial attacks from the Soviet Union. After the station closed, the radar equipment was updated and is still used as part of the FAA Joint Surveillance System. The Paradise Ridge Community Center opened here in 2013.

Location: Paradise Ridge Park, 3000 Morgan Rd.
Number 166
Erected 2018

Parmer School

In 1927 8.25 acres of the Belle Meade Plantation were acquired from its owner Walter O. Parmer to use for a new school. Parmer School opened that fall as a one-room school with grades 1-3. In 1928 the school was transformed into a modern brick building with 4 classrooms adding grades 4-8. By 1951 there were 18 classrooms. The school closed in 1982 and burned in 1985. The stone and brick archway was left as a reminder of the school’s history. The property became a public park in 1986.

Location: Parmer Park on Leake Avenue
Number 129
Erected 2008

Patsy Cline’s Dream House

This is the “dream house” of country music icon Patsy Cline, born Virginia Patterson Hensley in 1932. Roy Acuff offered her a job by the age of 16, but she opted to sing with a local group back home in Winchester, Va. She changed her name in 1953 and debuted on the Grand Ole Opry in 1955. She got her big break in 1957 singing “Walkin’ After Midnight” on Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts. In 1973, she became the first female solo artist inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Location: 815 Nella Dr.
Number 185
Erected 2019

Patton House

{double-sided}

In 1935 Rev. John Thomas Patton (1884-1965) hired McKissack & McKissack to build this home for his family. A community leader and well-respected businessman, Patton opened his home for meetings to improve African Americans’ equal access to civil and voting rights and higher education. He served as president of the Nashville NAACP chapter (1937-41) and oversaw the move of Mt. Olive Missionary Baptist Church from downtown to North Nashville during the Capitol Hill Redevelopment.

Location: 1014 28th Avenue N
Number 256
Erected 2023

Percy Priest Lake

Construction of the J. Percy Priest Dam and Reservoir began on June 2, 1963. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project was named for Priest, a teacher and Tennessean editor who served in Congress from 1940 until his death in 1956. Several small communities, like nearby Couchville, were destroyed during the creation of the lake. Dedicated on June 29, 1968, Percy Priest Dam generates Tenn. Valley Authority energy, and the 14,200-acre lake provides many recreational opportunities.

Location: 3001 Smith Springs Rd.
Number 206
Erected 2020

Percy Warner Park - 2058.1 acres

Percy Warner (1861-1927) was a pioneer in electric utilities and hydroelectric development in the South. As chairman of the Park Board, he expanded Nashville’s park system. Preservation of this natural area was one of his greatest civic projects. Named in his honor by the Park Board in 1927, this land constitutes the largest municipal park in Tennessee.

Location: Belle Meade Boulevard at Warner Park entrance
Number 78
Erected 1982

Powder-Grinding Wheels

These wheels used by the Confederacy to grind gunpowder at Augusta, Ga. in 1863-1864 were made in Woolwich, England and were shipped on the blockade runner “Spray,” via Mobile. After the war Gen. Miles purchased them for use at Sycamore Powder Mills, Cheatham County. They were exhibited at the Tennessee Centennial Exposition in 1897.

Location: Near present position of wheels in Centennial Park
Number 15
Erected 1969

Racial Terror Lynchings in America

{double-sided}

Thousands of African American men, women, and children were the victims of lynching and racial terror violence in the United States in the century following the end of the Civil War. As the federal protection of the Reconstruction era ended, African Americans seeking equal rights suffered violent abuse and resistance from white supremacists, leading to decades of political, social and economic exploitation. Jim Crow laws and threats of violence were used not only to deny African Americans their rights, but also to punish those who disobeyed the racial hierarchy. Lynchings became the most public and notorious form of racial terrorism, intended to intimidate African Americans and enforce racial segregation. These lynchings took place across the country and were perpetrated by people with no connection to one another, yet these rituals often included many of the same elements including abductions by a large mob (often from police custody), returning the victim to the scene of the alleged crime, stripping the victim to further inflict humiliation, and torture or mutilation. Many of the names of lynching victims were not recorded and remain unknown, but over 200 documented lynchings took place in Tennessee alone, at least six having taken place in Davidson County.

Location: 7200 Old Burkitt Road
Number 238
Erected 2021

Radnor College

Two blocks west, on the hill, stood Radnor, a college for young women. Founded by A.N. Eshman in 1906, it gained national attention for its complimentary educational tours for students. After the school closed in 1914, a printing plant on campus served until 1924 as the Cumberland Presbyterian Publishing House. In 1921, a spectacular fire claimed the college’s main building.

Location: corner of Nolensville Road and McClellan Street
Number 97
Erected 1996

Ratterman Row, 1223-1231 5th Ave N

In 1842, 18-year-old George H. Ratterman arrived in Nashville from Hanover (present-day Germany). He became a successful merchant and built his residence on North Summer Street (now 1215 Fifth Ave. North). Circa 1870, he Erected this row of two duplexes and a detached house for new German immigrants. A grant-funded restoration of these houses in 1984 was pivotal to the revitalization of historic Germantown. It is the only surviving example of a row development in the area.

Location: 1227 5th Avenue N
Number 252
Erected 2022

Ravenwood

Built in 1903 by Judge J.D.B. and Sarah DeBow, the two-story stone house called Ravenwood was razed and rebuilt in 1947 by businessman R.D. Stanford, Jr. The 272-acre estate included terraced gardens, stone walls and a man-made lake. In 1957, Stanford sold the land to the Donelson Improvement Co. to become the private Ravenwood Club. A swimming pool, tennis courts, equestrian trails and 18-hole golf course were added. Metro Parks and Recreation purchased the property in 2012.

Location: 1015 Stones River greenway (at entrance to Ravenwood Park)
Number 176
Erected 2019

RCA Studio B

RCA Records established a recording studio in this building in November 1957, with local offices run by guitarist-producer Chet Atkins. Its success led to a larger studio, known as Studio A, built next door in 1964. Studio B recorded numerous hits by Elvis Presley, the Everly Brothers, Roy Orbison, Don Gibson, Charley Pride, Jim Reeves, Dolly Parton, and many others. Along with Bradley Studios, Studio B is known for developing “The Nashville Sound.”
Donated by the Mike Curb Foundation

Location: 34 Music Square West
Number 141
Erected 2011

Richland Park

Once a part of the Byrd Douglas plantation, the Nashville Land Improvement Company dedicated ten acres for a public park in 1887. After annexation, the park became a Nashville City Park in 1907, and the City added playground equipment. Richland Park hosted many community events such as ice cream socials, band concerts, outdoor movies, and sporting events. The community center opened in 1932, and was converted into the Richland Park Library in 1961-62.

Location: 4711 Charlotte Ave.
Number 151
Erected 2013

Richland-West End

This early planned subdivision presents a largely unaltered picture of suburban residences in early 20th century Nashville. With ninety percent of existing homes built between 1905 and 1925, the styles range from large American foursquares to the more modest bungalows and cottages. The neighborhood is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Location: Bowling Ave at Richland Ave
Number 133
Erected 2008

Riverside Sanitarium

{double-sided}

Opened in 1927, Riverside Sanitarium and Hospital provided African Americans in Nashville with modern healthcare and drew patients and medical professionals from across the country. The mid-century modern Pagoda of Medicine, designed by Leon Q. Jackson, was built in 1963 for Dr. Carl A. Dent, who twice served as the chief medical director and president of the medical staff. McKissack and McKissack oversaw the construction of new facilities in the 1970s. The hospital closed in 1983.

Location: 800 Youngs Ln.
Number 167
Erected 2018

Rock City

Rock City was an African American community established c.1881, which was soon followed by the founding of First Baptist Church Rock City. Named for a rock quarry in the area, the approx. boundaries were Cahal Ave. to the south, Branch St. to the east, Litton Ave. to the north and Pennington Ave. to the west. Community children attended Rock City Elementary on Pennington Ave., which closed in 1954. The Men’s Civic Club raised funds to provide support for the church and community.

Location: South Inglewood Park, Ann St. at Rock City St.
Number 180
Erected 2018

Ryman Auditorium

The Union Gospel Tabernacle was built in 1892 after steamboat captain Thomas Ryman heard Rev. Sam P. Jones speak at a tent revival in 1885. Ryman commissioned architect Hugh C. Thompson to build the Gothic Revival church, which quickly became a place for secular and religious gatherings. After Ryman’s death in 1904 it was renamed in his honor. Nicknamed the “Mother Church of Country Music,” the Ryman Auditorium was home to WSM’s “Grand Ole Opry” from 1943-1974.

Location: 116 Rep. John Lewis Way
Number 20
Erected 1969

Saint Cecilia Academy

The name Saint Cecilia, patroness of music was chosen for a grammar and high school for girls, opened in October 1860 by four sisters who had moved to this site from Saint Mary’s convent, Third Order of Saint Dominic, Somerset, Ohio on August 17, 1860. The central building was completed in 1862, the west wing in 1880, and the east wing in 1913.

Location: 801 Dominican Dr.
Number 47
Erected 1971

Smith-Carter House

This stone, Monterey-style house was built in 1925 and purchased in 1952 by “Mr. Country,” Carl Smith, just weeks before his marriage to June Carter, of the famed Carter Family. The farm remained home to June and daughter Carlene after the couple’s 1956 divorce, during which time The Carter Family became a regular Grand Ole Opry act. In 1963, June wrote “Ring of Fire” here with Merle Kilgore, a certified Gold single recorded soon after by Johnny Cash and The Carter Family.

The Carter Family toured with Cash, often appearing on his show. June and Johnny recorded several duets and married in 1968. Family matriarch “Mother Maybelle” Carter, who developed the transformative “Carter Scratch” guitar picking style, moved here with husband Ezra in 1971 during his illness. Inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1970, Maybelle was featured on the 1972 Nitty Gritty Dirt Band album Will the Circle Be Unbroken. She stayed here until her death in 1978.

Location: 1020 Gibson Dr.
Number 171
Erected 2018

Saint Thomas Hospital

On April 11, 1898, at the request of Nashville Bishop Thomas Byrne, the Daughters of Charity opened Saint Thomas Hospital on this site in the former home of Judge J. M. Dickinson. Named for Byrne’s patron saint, the hospital began as a 26-bed “refuge for the sick,” opened a new building in 1902, operated a School of Nursing, and grew to 333 beds before moving in 1974 to 4220 Harding Road.

Location: Hayes Street and 20th Ave N
Number 102
Erected 1997

Scottsboro

{double-sided}

In 1869, Tom Scott opened a general store 500 yards to the southwest on Old Hyde’s Ferry Pike that also served as a post office and public gathering place. Scott’s Store became the center of this farming community, which stretches north to Joelton and south to the tip of Bells Bend. The unincorporated crossroads community was called Scott’s Store until 1902, when it was renamed Scottsboro.

Location: Old Hickory Blvd at Ashland City Highway
Number 136
Erected 2009

The Seeing Eye, Independence and Dignity Since 1929

The Seeing Eye, the world-famous dog guide training school, was incorporated in Nashville January 29, 1929, with headquarters in the Fourth and First National Bank Building at 315 Union St. Morris Frank, a 20-year-old blind man from Nashville, and his guide dog, Buddy, played a key role in the school’s founding and subsequent success. It was Frank who persuaded Dorothy Harrison Eustis to establish a school in the United States.

Location: Commerce Street at 3rd Ave N
Number 135
Erected 2009

Site of First Store

Lardner Clark, “Merchant and Ordinary Keeper,” came from Philadelphia, Penn. in the early 1780s with ten horses packed with goods to sell. He established Nashville’s first drygoods store by 1783, on a site 30 yards east. Clark sold calicoes, unbleached muslin, thimbles, pins, liquors, and provender for horses. Many customers traded pelts and furs for his goods. The building—which served as a store, tavern, and dwelling—faced south and was known as “the house with the piazza.”

Location: 214 2nd Ave. N (wall marker)
Number 3
Erected 1968

Site of Original Gas Works

The Nashville Gas Light Co., founded March 1850, with General Washington Barrow, President, built first gas works in Tennessee for manufacturing gas from coal. First street lamp was lighted February 13, 1851 at Second Ave. North and Public Square. First gas stove was used in 1894. Natural gas piped from Texas was first used in Nashville on August 5, 1946.

Location: 800 2nd Ave. N
Number 39
Erected 1971

Site of Waterworks Plant

The city’s present waterworks was inaugurated at this site October 1, 1833. The pumping station was erected on the lower river bluff and the reservoir on the upper grounds. German engineer, Albert Stein, designed and supervised construction. The system cost $55,000, the first bonded debt of the city. A new plant was in operation and this site was abandoned by April 1891.

Location: 8 Academy Place
Number 57
Erected 1975

St. Patrick Catholic Church

Erected in 1890 and named for Ireland's patron saint, this Second Empire style church was built to serve South Nashville's growing Irish Catholic population. Until 1954, the Sisters of Mercy taught a grade school here. Since the 1890s, the Irish Travelers, a unique clan of American nomads, have come here periodically for weddings and funerals.

Location: 1219 2nd Ave S
Number 91
Erected 1993

Stratford High School

Stratford High School opened in 1961, the last high school established by the Davidson County School Board before Metro consolidation. In September 1963, four African American students—Pamela Franklin, Brenda Harris Haywood, Beverly Page Ward and Bernadine Price Rabathaly—desegregated the school when they entered as seventh graders, facing a mob of protestors. Re-named Stratford STEM Magnet High School in 2012 and renovated in 2017, the school has achieved LEED Silver certification.

Location: 1800 Stratford Avenue
Number 264
Erected 2023

Sunnyside

Home of Mary Benton, widow of Jesse Benton who left Nashville after a famous feud with Andrew Jackson in 1813. The Greek Revival house was built c.1852 and stood between Union and Confederate lines during the Battle of Nashville in 1864. Prominent dentist L.G. Noel lived here for 45 years. The brick wings were added by Col. Granville Sevier during renovation of the house in the late 1920s.

Location: Sevier Park, 3000 Granny White Pike
Number 118
Erected 2004

Sylvan Park School

A two-room frame school building was constructed here in 1907 to serve the children of newly-annexed West Nashville. Students in grades 1-8 attended here, and a second two- room building was added in 1909 for students in grades 1-4. Maria Wilson Hill served as first principal. In 1936, the Public Works Administration funded the construction of the current Art Deco building, designed by the architectural firm of Asmus and Clark.

Location: 4801 Utah Ave.
Number 150
Erected 2013

Tanglewood Historic District

The Tanglewood Historic District is a rustic style suburban development from the 1920-1940s built by Robert M. Condra, a prominent Nashville builder. Natural materials are featured in this popular Arts and Crafts substyle that harmonizes with the landscape. Tanglewood is located at the site of a late 1700s settlement known as Haysborough.

Location: 4908 Tanglewood Dr. N, Madison
Number 112
Erected 2002

Tennessee/ Spring Water Brewery

In 1858 P. & N. Harsh built a small brewery near Franklin College on Stones River Pike. E.D. Crossman & M.J. Drucker took over in 1860, renaming it the Tennessee Brewery. After fire destroyed it in 1860 and again in 1864, Drucker rebuilt it as the Spring Water Brewery and leased to L. Mankel and M. Frank in 1866. F. Laitenberger (of Germantown’s City Brewery) assumed the lease briefly until the brewery closed in 1872 due to competition from the Nashville Brewing Company.

Location: Vultee Boulevard at Air Freight Boulevard
Number 230
Erected 2021

The Edgehill Community

Established during and after the Civil War, Edgehill became a vibrant African American neighborhood in the 20th century, drawing residents through its schools, churches and thriving local economy. Edgehill was home to leaders in government, business, education and the arts. Residents played vital roles in the Civil Rights Movement, and their advocacy included opposition to the adverse effects of urban renewal on the neighborhood. Edgehill continues this resilient legacy today.

Location: 1514 South Street
Number 228
Erected 2020

The Rock Block

One of Nashville’s oldest streets, Elliston Place was a popular commercial corridor by 1930. Elliston Place Soda Shop opened in 1939. In 1971 Owsley Manier and Brugh Reynolds opened the listening-room style music venue Exit/In, named for its main rear entrance. In the early 1980s the area became known as “The Rock Block,” with businesses like The End, TGI Friday’s, Obie’s Pizza, The Gold Rush and Mosko’s shaping Elliston Place’s legacy as Nashville’s counterculture epicenter.

Location: 2208 Elliston Place
Number 218
Erected 2020

The Temple Cemetery

The Temple Cemetery was established in 1851 with the purchase of three acres by the Hebrew Benevolent Burial Association and still serves Nashville’s first Jewish congregation, The Temple, Congregation Ohabai Sholom. It blends early urban burial ground practices with picturesque elements of later Victorian garden cemeteries. The Temple Cemetery was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.

Location: Temple Cemetery, 2001 15th Avenue North
Number 119
Erected 2004

Tennessee Hospital for the Insane

In 1832, the Tenn. legislature approved the state’s first asylum, established in 1840 southwest of Nashville. The State bought this land in 1848, after activist-reformer Dorothea Dix and asylum staff called for improved facilities. Prominent architect Adolphus Heiman designed the Gothic-style complex with octagonal towers and separate wards. Opened in 1852 and renamed Central State Hospital in 1920, it closed in 1995. A stone gatehouse and unmarked graves are all that remain.

Location: Murfreesboro Pike at Dell Pkwy.
Number 175
Erected 2018

Tennessee Ornithological Society

On October 7, 1915, Dr. George Curtis, Albert F. Ganier, Judge H.Y. Hughes, Dr. George R. Mayfield, Dixon Merritt, and A.C. Webb met at Faucon’s Restaurant, 419 Union Street, approximately 25 feet east of here, to found the Tennessee Ornithological Society. T.O.S. was chartered by the state for the purpose of studying Tennessee birds. A journal, The Migrant, publishes accurate records of birds across the state. The Birds of the Nashville Area has local records. T.O.S. is the state’s oldest conservation group in continuing existence. Donated in memory of B.B. Coffey (1870-1966).

Location: Union Street and Rep. John Lewis Way N (wall marker)
Number 88
Erected: 1992

Tennessee State University

Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial State Normal School for Negroes first opened its doors to 247 students in 1912. this site gave birth to a new era--Public Higher Education for Negroes in the state of Tennessee with emphasis on Agricultural and Industrial occupations. In 1922 the school was raised to college status and to a university in 1951.

Location: TSU Campus, 2904 John A Merritt Blvd
Number 69
Erected 1976

Tolbert Hollow

George Tolbert, a farmer, bought 97½ acres here in 1897 that became known as Tolbert Hollow. He was a former slave who, according to family tradition, purchased his own freedom. Tolbert worked 45 acres by 1880 and cut and sold wood with his sons. Land ownership signified true freedom for blacks after the Civil War. Generations of Tolbert’s descendants continued to live on his land.

Location: 576 Old Hickory Boulevard
Number 116
Erected 2003

Transfer Station Site

Site of electric street railway transfer station 1902-1940. Electric streetcar service began formally on April 30, 1889 replacing mule-drawn streetcars which had served the city since 1866. Final run for the electric streetcars was February 2, 1941 on Radnor line. Operation of bus system began August 4, 1940 on Hillsboro-Sunset line.

Location: 300 Deaderick St. (on 3rd Ave N)
Number 25
Erected 1970

Turner Grammar School

By 1800 Whitsett’s Chapel became this area’s first school. In January 1899 Flat Rock native, philanthropist and real estate developer R.W. Turner and wife Sallie W. Turner gave 2 acres for a new 9th dist. public school. The first Turner School was overcrowded by the 1920s. Designed by architect George D. Waller, Turner Grammar School opened in 1926 with Otto Prather as principal. The cafetorium dates to 1950. An annex of Cole Elem. in its final years, the school closed in 1989.

Location: 2949 Nolensville Pike
Number 201
Erected 2019

Two Rivers Mansion

Built in 1859 by David H. McGavock, this mansion stands on land inherited by McGavock’s wife, Willie, from her father, William Harding. The smaller house to the left was built in 1802. Dr. James Priestley’s Academy, established about 1816, was located on the 1,100 acre farm 1 mile from the mansion on the Cumberland River bluff.
Location: In front of Two Rivers Mansion on McGavock Pike
Number 10
Erected 1968

Una Community

The Una community developed around the crossroads of Smith springs road and Old Murfreesboro Pike in the early 19th century. The local postmaster changed the community name from Rowesdale, or Rosedale, to Una in 1882, honoring a Peabody college student much loved by local residents. Home to schools, churches, a general store, and a service station, this bustling tightly-knit rural community was supplanted by suburban development by the end of the 20th century.

Sponsored by Metro Council member Vivian Wilhoite

Location: Smith Springs Rd and Old Murfreesboro Rd
Number 127
Erected 2008

Union Station

Erected by Louisville and Nashville Terminal Company and dedicated October 9, 1900, the Romanesque style building of Bowling Green limestone and Tennessee marble was designed by L and N Chief Engineer Richard Montfort. A monument to the grand days of rail travel, the beloved station was renovated in 1986 into an elegant hotel by Union Station, Ltd.

Location: 1001 Broadway
Number 84
Erected 1990

United Nations Visit to Nashville

On June 7, 1976, 101 permanent representatives of the United Nations made a historic and unprecedented group visit to Nashville at the invitation of Tennessee Governor Ray Blanton and Nashville Mayor Richard Fulton. During the visit, the United Nations representatives attended a forum at nearby Vanberbilt University, a special Tennessee luncheon in Centennial Park, and a special performance of the Grand Ole Opry. United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim was presented the Cordell Hull Peace award by the state of Tennessee and Vanderbilt University during the visit.

Location: Centennial Park, front lawn of Parthenon
Number 70
Erected 1978

United Record Pressing

Bullet Records began in 1946 as one of Nashville’s first independent record labels. Bullet Plastics opened in 1947, pressing records for the label. The ownership and name changed in the 1950s to Southern Plastics, and the company moved from Broadway to Franklin Road. In 1963, it moved to a larger facility on Chestnut Street that pressed 1 million records per month, including all of Motown’s singles. The company became United Record Pressing in the 1970s.

African American artists and music executives who could not find accommodations in Jim Crow-era Nashville stayed in a rear apartment called the “Motown Suite” or “United Hilton.” Notable guests included Berry Gordy Jr., Smokey Robinson and the Supremes. In the 1990s United Record began manufacturing 10- and 12-inch records. In 2008 a distribution division was added and in 2010 a record label—453 Music—was launched. The company moved to a larger facility on Allied Drive in 2017.

Location: 453 Chestnut Street
Number 245
Erected 2022

University School of Nashville

Founded in 1915 as the successor to The Winthrop Model School at the University of Nashville, Peabody Demonstration School was established at this site in 1925 to utilize the teacher training methods developed at George Peabody College for Teachers. It became an independent institution in 1975 and was renamed University School of Nashville.

Location: 2000 Edgehill Avenue
Number 90
Erected 1992

Vauxhall Garden Site

Located immediately south, this fashionable place of entertainment was established by Messrs. Decker and Dyer in 1827 and operated for more than a decade. It covered several acres and included a ballroom, dining hall and miniature railroad. Pres. Jackson was honored here on several occasions. John Bell made his famous “Vauxhall Garden Speech” here May 23, 1835.

Location: Demonbreun St. and 9th Ave. S
Number 51
Erected 1975

Vine Hill

William J. Gerst (of the Wm. Gerst Brewing Co.) purchased the Vine Hill estate in 1900 from Capt. John W. Morton for $14,195. In 1905 Gerst built a three-story barn and started rearing thoroughbreds. The local brewer/turfman’s prize horse, Donau, won the Kentucky Derby in 1910. The family sold the estate in 1941 to make way for Vultee Aircraft’s employee housing. The home was used as a community center for soldiers during WWII and later razed for government housing.

Location: 2007 Bransford Avenue
Number 241
Erected 2022

Votes for Women

On August 18, 1920, Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, thereby giving all American women the right to vote. After weeks of intense lobbying by national leaders, Tennessee passed the measure by one vote. The headquarters for both suffragists, wearing yellow roses, and anti-suffragists, wearing red roses, were in the Hermitage Hotel.

Location: Union Street and Anne Dallas Dudley Boulevard
Number 94
Erected 1995

Wallace University School, 1886-1941

To prepare young men for college and for life, believing the first object of education to develop character, the second to develop intellect, third to make Christian gentlemen, Wallace University School, directed by Professor Clarence B Wallace, flourished on this site, 1914-1941. Graduates entered universities without taking the usual examinations.

Location: 2004 West End Ave.
Number 43
Erected 1971

Ward's Seminary

Ward’s Seminary for Young Ladies, founded in 1865 by Dr. William E. Ward, stood at this site many years. Dr. Ward, a graduate of Cumberland University in Lebanon in both law and divinity, died in 1887. The school was sold, but continued to operate as Ward’s Seminary until 1913 when it merged with Belmont college to form Ward-Belmont, a high school and junior college for women. Ward’s was regarded as one of the leading
schools for young women in the South.

Location: 169 8th Avenue North, wall mounted
Number 109
Erected: 2001

Warehouse 28

Steve Smith and Michael “Dolly” Wilson opened Warehouse 28 in April 1978. The Warehouse began as a gay disco, but it quickly attracted anybody, gay or straight, who wanted to dance. As the AIDS epidemic exploded, the Warehouse staged drag-show fundraisers that made possible the founding of Nashville Council on AIDS, Resources, Education and Services (Nashville CARES) in 1985. The bar closed in 1994. Smith died of AIDS-related causes in 1995.

Location: 2531 8th Avenue S
Number 261
Erected 2023

Washington Junior High School

Named for George E. Washington, former principal of Pearl High School, this grade 7-9 school opened in 1928. Principals included J.A. Galloway, Braxton Murrell and Isaiah Suggs. Students took classes in English, history, Latin, science, math, industrial arts and music, and had student-teacher partnerships with Fisk University and Tennessee A&I. Razed in the mid-1980s for Pearl-Cohn Magnet School, alumni include many significant members of Nashville’s African American community.

Location: 25th Avenue N and Morena Street
Number 257
Erected 2023

Watkins Park

Land once known as Watkins Grove was given to the city in 1870 by brick maker and contractor Samuel Watkins. It served as a site for political gatherings, school commencements and concerts. This became Nashville’s first public park in 1901. Park Board chairman E.C. Lewis planned landscape features including a stone entrance and fence, walkways, flowerbeds, and benches, which were built with materials donated by citizens. In 1906, the Centennial Club opened the city’s first playground here, setting a precedent for public recreation facilities elsewhere in the city. Improved by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s, Watkins Park was a park for black Nashvillians from 1936 until the 1960s, when the park system was desegregated.

Location: 616 17th Ave N, Watkins Park
Number 123
Erected 2005

Waverly Place

About 100 yards east stood Waverly, the home of A.W. Putnam, a writer and historian. The house was named for the Waverley Novels by Sir Walter Scott. Putnam sold Waverly in 1858, and in 1887 the land was conveyed to a real estate syndicate—the Waverly Land Co. The land was subdivided into lots, and became a streetcar suburb serviced by the Waverly Place-Glendale Park line. Several of the streets—Grantland, White, and Ridley—are named for members of the land syndicate.

Location: 8th Ave S and Benton Ave.
Number 67
Erected 1976

WDAD Radio Station, "Where Dollars Are Doubled"

{double-sided}

Prior to the Berger Building, Nashville’s first commercial radio station WDAD operated at this site above Dad’s Radio Supply Store. Launched in September 1925, WDAD was Nashville’s first studio to broadcast country and blues music nationwide with artists such as Humphrey Bate, Uncle Dave Macon, DeFord Bailey and Bessie Smith. WDAD’s old-time fiddle contests inspired rival station WSM to create the Grand Ole Opry. Due to street widening, WDAD relocated and became WLAC in 1926.

Location: 164 Rosa L. Parks Boulevard
Number 225
Erected 2020

West End High School

One of Nashville’s best examples of Colonial Revival style, this building was designed by Donald Southgate and opened in 1937. Public Works Administration funds supported its construction during a major city school building project of the 1930s. Principals William H. Yarbrough (1937-54) and John A. Oliver (1955-68) built a reputation for academic and athletic excellence. It became a middle school in 1968.

Donated by the West End High School Alumni Association, Inc.

Location: West End Middle School, 3529 West End Ave
Number 117
Erected 2003

"Western Harmony"

Music publishing in Nashville began in 1824 when “The Western Harmony” was published by Allen D. Carden and Samuel J. Rogers. A book of hymns and instruction for singing, it was printed by Carey A. Harris on the press of his newspaper, the Nashville Republican, on College Street (now Third Avenue) in this vicinity.

Location: 3rd Ave. N and James Robertson Pkwy
Number 75
Erected 1981

Woman Suffrage Rallies

Centennial Park was the site of May Day rallies held annually from 1914 until 1920, when the Tennessee General Assembly ratified the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing the right to vote to American women. Suffragists marched from the State Capitol to Centennial Park, where thousands gathered to hear speakers such as Ann Dallas Dudley, Maria Thompson Daviess, Sue Shelton White, Catherine Kenny, and Abby Crawford Milton.

Location: Centennial Park, along 28th Ave N near Art Center
Number 155
Erected 2013

Woodbine

An early settler of this area was James Menees, at whose home Mill Creek Baptist Church was formed in 1797. James Whitsett, first pastor, served over 50 years. Earlier known as Flat Rock, in 1939 this place was renamed Woodbine, after the David Hughes Estate once located on Nolensville Road. In 1919 the L and N Railroad began operation of Radnor Yards.

Location: Nolensville Rd and Whitsett Ave.
Number 55
Erected 1975

Woodcuts Gallery

Woodcuts Gallery and Custom Framing opened on September 18, 1987. Owner Nathaniel Harris leased the building from Fisk University and spent five months renovating the dilapidated building. A founding member of Jefferson United Merchants Partnership (J.U.M.P.), the business was instrumental in revitalizing the historic Jefferson Street corridor. Woodcuts was a hub for artists like Ludie Amos, Michael McBride, Gregory Ridley, Jamaal Sheats and James Threalkill.

Location: 1613 Jefferson Street
Number 250
Erected 2022

Woodmont Estates

Created in 1937 from the G. A. Puryear farm. It was once part of Samuel Watkin’s country estate. Olmsted Bros. Landscape Architects designed the roads and lots to flow naturally with the hills, valleys, and brook. Residential development was made possible by the 1915 construction of a concrete road. Known by 1918 the first documented concrete road in Tennessee.

Location: West Valley Brook and Bear Road
Number 104
Erected 1999

Woodmont School

Woodmont School opened in 1931 on land purchased by area parents for $3000. Thousands of students attended in grades one through eight, and the school served as the hub of the community for the next 50 years. Many former students remember beloved teachers, principals and staff, and events such as spaghetti suppers, paper drives, field day events and annual carnivals. The school closed in 1982 and the building was razed in 1986. The campus became Woodmont Park in 1987.

Location: 912 Estes Road
Number 239
Erected 2022

"Woodmont"

{double-sided}

This four-story colonial residence was constructed in 1910 by Stone Stein for G.A. Puryear as a country home called “Woodmont.” It was built on the state’s first concrete road, Concrete Blvd. Woodmont Christian Church purchased this home in 1943 for $37,500 to be used as a combination worship and education space and a parsonage. Today it houses administrative offices and preschool classrooms for the church.

Location: 3601 Hillsboro Pike
Number 270
Erected 2023