Frommer's EasyGuide to Nashville and Memphis

By Ashley Brantley

From Music City to the Home of the Blues, Frommer’s EasyGuide to Nashville and Memphis has everything you need for a tuneful, tasty, and enriching trip to these Tennessee titans of American music. In this concise, up-to-date guide, local expert Ashley Brantley leads readers through palaces of country like the Grand Ole Opry and Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, as well as the Beale Street clubs in Memphis where the blues and rock were born—stopping along the way at bars and honky-tonks where tomorrow’s chart-toppers hone their craft. There’s more to these cities than music, though, and Frommer’s gives plenty of space to their historical and natural sights, museums, and, of course, food, including Memphis barbecue and Nashville hot chicken.

Inside the guide:

• Tons of helpful maps, including a full-color foldout map
• Exact pricing, with accurate amounts listed for every attraction, restaurant, hotel, nightspot, and shop

• No-holds-barred reviews of the most appealing attractions—and the ones to skip
• Money-saving tips for every budget
• Smart planning strategies for trips of varying lengths and travelers with varying interests
• Star ratings to help you find highlights and hidden gems at a glance

About Frommer’s: There’s a reason that Frommer’s has been the most trusted name in travel for more than sixty years. Arthur Frommer created the best-selling guide series in 1957 to help American servicemen fulfill their dreams of travel in Europe, and since then, we have published thousands of titles became a household name helping millions upon millions of people realize their own dreams of seeing our planet. Travel is easy with Frommer’s.

• Language: English
• Publisher: FrommerMedia
• Release date: May 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9781628874457

Book preview

1

The Best of Nashville

T hree chords and the truth. That’s how songwriter Harlan Howard famously described great country music in the 1950s. If you’re coming to Nashville now, there’s something you need to know about that: The noise you’re going to hear blaring from party barges and five-story honky-tonks is not great country music. Hell, I’d argue it’s not really music at all. But for me, Howard’s words apply to more than just music—they remind me of Nashville’s spirit, which has always been one of earnest people creating and sharing beautiful things. And that’s still very real today.

Yes, some parts of Nashville have been sprayed with a big, glitzy, corporate hillbilly hose, and you’re absolutely going to be assaulted by that. But rest assured the small town charm you’re hoping to find is still here, too—as are the innovative dining, rowdy drinking, eclectic art, rolling hills, and, of course, world-class music you’re looking for. The best thing about Nashville is finding your corner of it, so let’s go do it.

The best Nashville Experiences

See Live Music at the Ryman: Anyone who’s seen a concert at the Mother Church of Country Music, the Ryman Auditorium (p. 94), knows it is a singular experience. Simply put, it’s one of the best places to see live music in the world. If that sounds like an overstatement, it’s only because you’ve yet to experience it. Seeing your favorite artist take that sacred stage and blow the doors off is inspiring, unforgettable, and something that only happens in Nashville. Touring the 1890s tabernacle with its gorgeous hardwood pews and stained-glass windows is good, but it’s no match for seeing The Ryman’s pitch-perfect acoustics, rich history, and incomparable drama in action.

Eat And Drink It All: While Nashville’s always been a drinking town, more and more the city is being noted for its food, too. Of course there are the hot chicken (fried chicken covered in spices—a Nashville original) and meat-and-threes (a Southern dining staple—one meat, three sides), but you’ll also discover great ramen shops, tasting menus, craft breweries, upscale dives, rustic Italian fare, and an ever-expanding offering of craft burgers that’s oddly overtaken the town. The bottom line: Don’t waste a meal on the free continental breakfast at your hotel—we can do better. See p. 58 and p. 109.

Explore Old School Honky-tonks: While half the junk on Broadway these days is just that—junk—there are several bastions of the old guard holding strong. The best is Robert’s Western World (p. 115), which is full of loud crowds, live music, cold beers, and a fried baloney sandwich best enjoyed after a raucous turn on the jam-packed dance floor. Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge (p. 117) is another tried-and-true option where there’s never a cover and always a good time.

Hit a Historical Music Trifecta: Many of the 15.2 million people who visit Nashville each year are here to party, and that is a respectable goal. The good news is that there’s an easy way to work in some historical outings without spending a lot of money or time. Start your day downtown at the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum (p. 88) to immerse yourself in all things country music. Listen to old recordings, play interactive games, pore over jewel-encrusted costumes and rock out in the 1990s country music video room. Then visit Historic RCA Studio B (p. 89) on nearby Music Row to see where acts like Dolly Parton, Porter Wagoner, the Everly Brothers, and Elvis Presley cut 1960s hits that helped define the Nashville Sound. While the studio is on Music Row, the Studio B tour departs from the Hall of Fame and takes little more than an hour to complete. You can also visit the legendary letterpress Hatch Show Print (p. 93), which is now also housed in the Hall of Fame building. Here, you can get a behind-the-scenes look at how they hand-paint every concert poster that passes through their doors. Aggressive tourists can easily knock out all three of these tours in one morning, leaving the rest of your day free to explore.

Get Loud with the Locals at a Preds Game: I am not much of a sports person, so for me to rank going to a Nashville Predators (p. 131) hockey game as one of the best things to do in Nashville, you can trust that the Preds put on a wildly entertaining show. While many locals have been fans of the franchise for years, the city’s obsession was reinvigorated during our 2017 Stanley Cup run, and Nashville routinely turned into a sea of gold during every game. The energy that courses through Bridgestone Arena during every game is simply electric. Even those years we’re not the best team in the league, we are sure as hell the best show.

Get Outside Inside the City Limits: While Nashville’s downtown scene is thriving, for many years we were a pretty sprawling place, and the benefit of that is that all of our green space hasn’t been paved over just yet for a new juice bar or a SoulCycle. Downtown there are Cumberland and Riverside parks, in Germantown there’s Bicentennial Mall, and in Belle Meade there’s Cheekwood Botanical Garden, plus many, many more spots to enjoy the outdoors inside the city. See p. 107.

The best Restaurants in Nashville

Best Meat-and-Three: Arnold’s Country Kitchen (p. 63) is the granddaddy of Nashville meat-and-threes. People line up outside the 8th Avenue diner every weekday to get their hands on a rotating assortment of country classics including fried chicken, mac and cheese, butter beans, and tomato pie. Nowhere does Southern home-style cooking better.

Best Laid-Back Fine Dining: Urban Cowboy Public House (p. 70) is quietly serving up some of the city’s least expensive, most inventive fancy food. From oysters with ginger and fish sauce to abalone mushroom broth, it’s a can’t-miss spot for anyone serious about food.

Best Hot Chicken: While I enjoy several of Nashville’s newer hot chicken haunts (Hattie B’s is excellent despite its super-touristy nature), there’s no substitute for Prince’s Hot Chicken (p. 86). Their salty, spicy, crispy, juicy hot chicken is the standard against which all others are measured; it’s a must for food fanatics.

The best Hotels In Nashville

Best Historic Hotel: The posh Hermitage Hotel (p. 41) offers impeccable service and attention to detail. With its beautiful stained-glass ceiling in the Beaux Arts lobby, gourmet dining, and extra-large, sumptuously furnished rooms with marble bathrooms and soaking tubs, everything about this iconic grand hotel says old-school glamour.

Best Unique Experience & Best Splurge: Nashville’s most thoughtfully curated hotel, Noelle (p. 44) is an experience unto itself. From the impeccable dining options (coffee counter, lobby bar, underground restaurant, rooftop sky lounge) to the local art on display in every hallway and the oasis-style rooms, Noelle is the rare hotel that helps you experience Nashville before you’ve even left the hotel.

Best Bed-and-Breakfast: Urban Cowboy B&B (p. 53) is an outpost of the original in Brooklyn, New York, and that tells you much of its story—but not all of it. This enchantingly creaky old house has been fully and lovingly restored and is tucked away on one of East Nashville’s most quaint and convenient streets.

Nashville’s best for Free & Dirt Cheap

Music & Dancing: While you’ll pay a premium for some concerts in Nashville, there are tons of free ways to get your groove on. In downtown’s Public Square Park, there’s the annual free Live on the Green music festival every summer, which brings in headliners such as Dr. John, Ben Folds, and Cage the Elephant. In Centennial Park, you’ll find the Musician’s Corner concert series, which offers much more than just music, including a Kidsville section; big band dances Saturday nights; free Shakespeare in the Park performances (Aug–Sept); and the family-friendly Tales at Twilight on Fridays in July. If you don’t mind a bit of a drive, Arrington Vineyards offers jazz in the courtyard and bluegrass in the barn. While the wine’s not free, the music is. In the honky-tonk arena, there are also bars that don’t charge a cover: Rippy’s Smokin’ Bar & Grill, Robert’s Western World, Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, Layla’s Bluegrass Inn, Legends Corner, Nudie’s Honky Tonk, The Second Fiddle, and The Stage. And finally, songwriter nights are a dime a dozen here and happen weekly at places such as the Commodore Grille, Barlines at the Omni Hotel, Douglas Corner, and Puckett’s Grocery Downtown. The famed Bluebird Cafe also has no cover charge for their Sunday writer night or Monday open mics. To find all the music that’s going on—free or not—download the Nashville Convention & Visitors Bureau’s app: Nashville Live Music Guide. Search by genre, venue, location, and free or paid. See Chapter 7.

Tours: Most tours in Nashville are relatively affordable with just a few sneaky charges they’ll try to slip past you ($20 printed photos, for example, on top of the price of admission). But there are a few thrifty options if you have the willpower to just do the tour and bypass pricey souvenirs and add-ons. For the 21-and-over crowd, the $10 Green Brier Distillery tour (p. 124) tells the unbelievable story of brothers who revived the Belle Meade bourbon tradition that their great-grandfather started, years after the original recipe was lost—and then found on one fateful road trip. Bonus points because this whiskey tour is within the city limits, so there’s no need to drive to Lynchburg. The family-friendly Olive & Sinclair (p. 146) chocolate tour is even cheaper at $5 per person. Learn how the chocolatiers make their rich, unique confection, from beans to bars; watch as chocolate is churned in the back on their antique melanger; and then sample some of their specialty goodies. If you don’t want to shell out the $5, the shop also offers free samples in the front. If art is your poison, join one of the city’s many art crawls, which are basically free mini-museum tours (www.visitmusiccity.com). With a little advance planning, you can reserve a spot on a free tour of the state capitol and/or the Tennessee Executive Residence (you’ll have to reserve a few weeks in advance; see p. 95).

Attractions & Events: Now that the free-admission Tennessee State Museum has moved from its underground lair into a nice new building in Germantown, it’s a no-brainer for anyone looking for cheap entertainment. Pair it with a stroll through Bicentennial Mall’s 200-foot granite map of the state and then walk through the Nashville Farmers’ Market and you’ve got a free afternoon that would excite any rambler. The Nashville Public Library system presents free events, including book signings and readings, puppet shows, and a variety of wellness activities through their Be Well at NPL program, which provides free yoga, cooking classes, and other healthful activities. The cutest: Reading Paws, where children are invited to build their reading skills by reading to a therapy dog. Also at the library is Mr. Bond the Science Guy, who has dozens of free appearances that keep kids involved in science over the summer (https://library.nashville.org). You can also visit Fort Negley, a historic site overlooking the Nashville skyline that was the biggest stone fortification built inland during the Civil War. See Chapter 6.

Sports & Outdoors: Downtown’s Cumberland Park has all kinds of kids’ activities, including a climbing wall and splash pad. Warner Park Nature Center hosts free kids’ programming where you can dig in the dirt and investigate snakes and salamanders, or take a nature walk with experts. The Barnard-Seyfert Astronomical Society hosts public star parties where amateur and professional astronomers share telescopes and insider info about our universe. Nashville also has nearly 90 miles of greenways, so you can walk, bike, or run your way through Middle Tennessee. Small World Yoga offers free and pay-what-you-can yoga classes all over town for all skill levels (www.smallworldyoga.org). For sports fans, both the Tennessee Titans football team and the Nashville Predators hockey club host open practices that are free to the public to watch, and you can get autographs and photos with the players afterwards. See Chapter 6.

secret Nashville

Secret Places Where You Can Live Like a Local: While the following spots could be filed under best places to stay, these unique properties remain (relatively) under-the-radar for the moment. First, there is the only non-Airbnb accommodation in Germantown: The Germantown Inn (p. 54). I walked by this place for years before someone told me about it, and while it is pricey, it’s also an elegant, historical place to stay near downtown where you can really get the neighborhood vibe. Similarly, the 404 Hotel (p. 50), nestled smack in the middle of the Gulch, may be the best value in all of Nashville. The hotel comprises just four apartments, but they are modern, clean, and comfortable and you feel like you’re living in the Gulch—if you had a much higher budget. Rates include a parking space which is a huge perk for anyone driving to town, as $40 a day for valet is standard here. If you’re traveling with a group, the Buffalo Soul Airbnb (p. 51) near Music Row could be the ticket. It’s a little off the beaten path, which is kind of the point, and you can rent the whole house, which sleeps 10, for less than $200 a person for a weekend. It comes fully stocked with snacks and beer and breakfast and all kinds of cool stuff. It’s walkable to the Edgehill neighborhood, which features shops and restaurants, and there’s even a recording studio in the basement for those who want to rock out.

Lesser-known Places to Experience Music Like a Local: While the Grand Ole Opry and the Bluebird Cafe get most of the media love, you don’t have to visit either to get a sense of the city’s talent (and that’s good; neither is convenient to anything else you want to do). After you’ve done the Ryman, there are still a ton of live music venues here to explore. For huge headliners, you have the big boys—Bridgestone Arena and Nissan Stadium—but my favorites are the smaller, more intimate venues that tourists often don’t think to check. Those include The Basement, 3rd & Lindsley, the CMA Theater at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, City Winery, and Exit/In to name a very few. I should note intimate in this context does not mean quiet; it just means close to the action, as I have seen many a rager at The Basement and Exit/In. Don’t sleep on the CMA Theater in particular; many locals for some reason don’t have it on their radar, but it’s an exceptional venue that’s conveniently located, and it gets great acts. Ascend Amphitheater, while it should technically be counted in the big boy category because it seats 6,800 people, feels more like a small show, and the same goes for the Schermerhorn Symphony Center, which hosts concerts of all kinds. Great seasonal events include the Full Moon Pickin’ Party at Warner Parks (p. 130), a unique way to experience bluegrass, as well as the Live on the Green concert series downtown and Musician’s Corner at Centennial Park, both of which are free. See Chapter 7.

The No-Wait Workaround: Only a few Nashville eateries are worth the wait, and they include Hattie B’s Hot Chicken, Bolton’s Spicy Chicken & Fish, and Martin’s Bar-B-Que. But there is no reason you need to visit them at high noon on Sunday or at 7pm on Saturday to stand around and wait for 2 hours. Instead, a few workarounds: 1) Go in the off hours: sleep in, have breakfast at 10:30am, and eat a late lunch around 2:30 or 3pm when the lines are less crazy; 2) Check out a non-downtown location. Martin’s has an outpost on Belmont Boulevard, Hattie B’s has one in West Nashville on Charlotte Pike and on 8th Avenue South, and Bolton’s also has one on Franklin Pike; 3) At Martin’s in particular, snag a seat at any one of Martin’s three bars, where you’re welcome to order food; 4) Call in your order for pickup or use the Postmates app, skip the line to check out, and go enjoy your food at any one of Nashville’s amazing parks.

overrated Nashville

Opryland: For me, the name Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center (p. 97) kind of sums up my issues with it: The place is a corporate machine, and it feels like one. There are two big exceptions: the holiday season, when Opryland is truly a festive wonderland; and for parents of young kids, for whom this hotel will be much more fun to explore than any chic, downtown option. Those caveats aside, Opryland is expensive and far away and it’s simply not the unique, once-in-a-lifetime experience many travelers believe it to be. At the risk of being evicted from the city, I’m also going to say this: The Grand Ole Opry is just OK. It’s a fun variety show, and for people who remember tuning into the Opry on an actual radio, it will be worth the trip. For everyone else, save your money and buy a concert ticket to the Ryman.

Distant Attractions: Ten years ago, a car was an essential accessory for anyone traveling to Nashville, but that is not at all the case today. With so much good stuff in the city center, there’s an increasing list of things that are simply not worth the time or trouble it will take you to get there. For me this list includes Opryland (see above) but also Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage (p. 100). They’ve done a decent job making the Hermitage tour modern and interactive, but at some point, if you’ve seen one old Southern plantation, you’ve seen them all, and this one is 30 minutes away. Also, while I adore the Loveless Café (p. 68) for its charm, you can absolutely get a good biscuit somewhere that’s not 30 minutes outside of town and doesn’t require an hour wait. Speaking of which:

Standing in Line for Breakfast: Nashville has copious amounts of fantastic restaurants, many of which serve food I’d gladly wait in line for. Ironically, the restaurants that typically have lines out the door are, by and large, not those places. Pancake Pantry is, simply, ridiculous. The place serves fine breakfast food that can be had at any number of places in town. Biscuit Love is the same: The food is good, but it is just good. For the love of God, please don’t waste half your morning standing in line to get it.

New Nashville: New Nashville includes, but is not limited to, pedal taverns, bachelorette parties, mediocre barbecue restaurants, burgers with too many toppings, coffee shops where someone is wearing a monocle and taking 15 minutes to make an espresso, and, most of all, country music stars who own bars on Broadway. Thus far, that includes Blake Shelton (Kiss My Country Ass is emblazoned at his spot and pretty much says it all), Jason Aldean (whose bar is made out of an old John Deere tractor), Dierks Bentley (whose Whiskey Row is at least housed in the former home of Gruhn Guitars and thus has some modicum of authenticity), Luke Bryan (who had the audacity to involve sushi), Kid Rock (who is hilariously calling his place a steakhouse, which is terrifying) and, the piece de resistance, Florida Georgia Line House, which blasts music so terrible and so loud that I swear I heard it inside the Schermerhorn Symphony Center the last time I was there. I say this all to let you know up front that this book will not unlock any secret ways to skip the line at FGL’s Sundaze Brunch, which is a name I didn’t make up but I wish to God I did. Going to any of these places is tantamount to ordering french fries at McDonald’s in Paris. Do so at your own peril.

2

Nashville in Context

Now more than ever, Nashville’s story is a tale of two cities. The first is the one you’ve likely heard about: the thriving Southern city where you can find more hospitality and history than you could ever hope to explore in one weekend. The second is of New Nashville—a term locals use with derision and marketers with glee. It’s the Nashville that’s littered with honky-tonks and high rises, that teems with bros and bachelorettes, and that—if the Pop Country Machine had its way—would have already been renamed Blake Shelton Presents A Good Ol’ Boy’s Honky-Tonkin’ Hell-Raisin’ Music City, sponsored by Gaylord Opryland.

However, all that noise says much more about how Nashville is perceived than who we are. Without question, country music is the city’s biggest (and loudest) machine. But locals will be quick to tell you that much of what Nashville pumps out these days bears no resemblance to authentic country music, and that there’s a lot more to Nashville than just music anyway. There’s a spirit here that survives no matter what else changes. In every corner of town (yes, we still call it town), you can find a place that’s full of warm people, cold beer, tall tales, old friends, and open mics. Sure, those places might be harder to find now, amidst all the flash and fuss, but they are here—you just have to know where to look.

The Nashville Sound

Nashville’s reputation as Music City attracts thousands of songwriters and would-be stars. While some are just looking to score a glossy record deal, the majority are earnest music-makers, and they come packing talent. That means music lovers, on any given day, have hundreds of opportunities to hear great, undiscovered acts as well as established names.

That live music tradition in Nashville goes back a long way. In the 1800s, the Fisk University Jubilee Singers (p. 102) toured Europe singing African-American spirituals. Their efforts helped fund the school’s mission of educating freed slaves, and also put Nashville on the musical map. Some sources say it was Queen Victoria of England who, upon hearing the group sing, said they must come from the Music City, giving Nashville its nickname.

By 1902, the city had its first music publisher. The Benson Company was a gospel outfit, and Nashville still hosts several annual gospel festivals today. But for most people, the history of Nashville in the 20th century is the history of country music. Fiddle music at dances had been a part of the culture from the arrival of Tennessee’s first settlers, but it was not until the early 20th century that city folks began to pay attention to hillbilly music. While that term isn’t considered politically correct today, it originally contained some arguably positive connotations. One of the first recorded usages is from a 1900 New York Journal article containing this definition: A Hill-Billie is a free and untrammeled white citizen of Tennessee, who lives in the hills, has no means to speak of, dresses as he can, talks as he pleases, drinks whiskey when he gets it, and fires off his revolver as the fancy takes him. Now, if you’re from the South like I am, I’d wager you have at least three relatives who would be happy to be described as such—and who’d probably pay good money get that printed on a T-shirt.

In 1925, radio station WSM-AM began broadcasting a show called the WSM Barn Dance, which featured live country music performances. Two years later, it renamed the show the Grand Ole Opry. Still staged live every week, the Opry is America’s longest-running radio show, in continuous production for more than 90 years. The same year the Opry began, Victor Records sent an engineer to record traditional Tennessee music, which exposed it to a wider audience. Interest in country music began to spread throughout the South and across the nation.

In 1942, Nashville’s first country music publishing house opened, followed by its first recording studio in 1945. By the 1960s, there were dozens of studios and more than 100 music publishers in Nashville. Country music skyrocketed in popularity, and all the major record companies opened offices here. Leading the industry at the time were brothers Owen and Harold Bradley, who opened the city’s first non-Opry recording studio. CBS and RCA followed suit. Many of the industry’s biggest and most familiar names first recorded in Nashville at this time, including Patsy Cline, Hank Williams, Dottie West, Porter Wagoner, Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Elvis Presley, the Everly Brothers, and Perry Como.

During this period, country music evolved from its rough hillbilly origins to a cleaner, more urban sound, which was largely developed by music producers to compete with rock ‘n’ roll. This famously became known as the Nashville Sound, which often included smooth strings and tempos, catchy choruses, and sophisticated background vocals. Today you can tour the old recording studio where many of those hits were recorded at Historic RCA Studio B (p. 89).

In 1972, a country music theme park opened on the east side of Nashville: Opryland USA. Two years later, the Opry moved from the downtown Ryman Auditorium, its home of more than 30 years, to the new Grand Ole Opry House at Opryland, which is now owned by Ryman Hospitality and managed by Marriott International. The hotel, entertainment, and shopping behemoth has a staggering annual economic impact of more than $860 million.

In recent years, country music has taken a sharp turn from its roots, once again adapting to maintain listenership. While overproduced, arena-pleasing acts like Brad Paisley, Rascal Flatts, and Florida Georgia Line thrill the masses, there are distinct countercultures of music in Nashville that feel more authentic to many listeners. On any given night, you can find acts playing Americana (Jason Isbell, the Civil Wars, Gillian Welch), return-to-its-roots country (Sturgill Simpson, Steve Earle, Chris Stapleton), rock (Kings of Leon, the Black Keys, Jack White), as well as rap, classical, and everything in between.

Dateline

Looking Back at Nashville

The earliest days   Long before Europeans set foot in Middle Tennessee, Native Americans populated the rolling hills, dense forests, and grasslands. Herds of deer and buffalo made the region an excellent hunting ground. However, by the late 18th century when the first Europeans arrived, warfare over access to the area’s rich hunting grounds forced battling tribes to move away. Though there were no native villages in the immediate area, tension and violence between Native Americans and settlers was very real.

Frontier Days   The first Europeans to arrive in middle Tennessee were French fur trappers and traders: Charles Charleville, who established a trading post at a salt lick in 1710 near what’s now Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park, and Timothy Demonbreun, who made his home in a cave on a bluff above the Cumberland River. By the 1750s, the area that is now Nashville came to be known as French Lick. During that time, the only other whites to explore the area were long hunters, who got their name from extended, months-long hunting trips over the Appalachian Mountains (the chain that runs from Canada to central Alabama today). These hunters would bring back stacks of buckskins, which at the time sold for $1 apiece, which is how a dollar came to be called a buck. Daniel Boone, the most famous long hunter, is thought to have passed through French Lick in the 1760s.

In the 1770s, the Indian Treaty of Lochaber and the Transylvania Purchase gave settlers access to land west of the Appalachians. Settlements had already sprung up on Cherokee land there, forming the Watauga Association, which was one of the early forms of self-government. However, it was not until the late 1770s that the first settlers arrived in Middle Tennessee. In 1778, Watauga Association member James Robertson brought a scouting party here during his search for a place to build a new settlement. The bluffs appealed to Robertson, and the following year he returned with a party of settlers who arrived at French Lick on Christmas Eve 1779. Women and children, under the leadership of John Donelson, followed by flatboat, traveling 1,000 miles by river and arriving in April 1780. The new settlement of nearly 300 was named Fort Nashborough after North Carolina General Francis Nash. As soon as both parties were assembled, settlers drew up a charter of government called the Cumberland Compact, which is largely recognized as the first form of government in Middle Tennessee.

Fort Nashborough was founded while the Revolutionary War raged, and the first settlers soon found themselves battling the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Chickasaw. Cherokee Chief Dragging Canoe strongly objected to the sale of land to the settlers because he predicted it would result in the extinction of the Cherokee, so his tribes fought back. The worst confrontation was 1871’s Battle of the Bluffs, though Native attacks on the settlements would continue for the next 14 years.

By 1784, the situation had grown quieter, and the settlement changed its name from Nashborough to Nashville. Twelve years later, Tennessee became the 16th state in the Union. Nashville was still a tiny settlement in a vast wilderness, but in less than 20 years, the city would become known nationwide due to one now-famous resident.

In 1814, at the close of the War of 1812, Nashville lawyer Andrew Jackson led a contingent of Tennessee militiamen in the Battle of New Orleans. The British were soundly defeated, and Jackson became a hero. A political career followed, and in 1829, Jackson was elected the seventh president of the United States. At home in Tennessee, during the early part of the 19th century, the state government bounced back and forth across the state before finally staying put in Nashville, where the capitol building was completed in 1859.

The Civil War & Reconstruction   By 1860, when the first rumblings of secession began across the South, Nashville was a prosperous river port. Tennessee became the last state to secede and side with the Confederacy, and that decision sealed Nashville’s fate. The city’s significance as a shipping port was not lost on either side, both of which wanted to control key river and railroad transportation routes. In February 1862, the Union army overtook Nashville, razing many homes and making Nashville the first state capital to fall to the Union.

Throughout the Civil War, the Confederates repeatedly attempted to reclaim Nashville to no avail. In December 1864, the Confederate army made its last attempt. They were easily defeated at the Battle of Nashville, where 6,000 Confederate soldiers went up against 45,000 Union soldiers. Many historians believe more black Union troops fought in the Battle of Nashville than in any other battle of the Civil War.

Though the war left Nashville severely damaged and in dire economic straits, the city quickly rebounded. Within a few years, it had reclaimed its important shipping and trading position and developed a solid manufacturing base. The late 19th century brought prosperity and left the city with a legacy of grand classical-style buildings, which can still be seen downtown.

In 1886, Fisk University, one of the nation’s first African-American universities, was founded. Vanderbilt University followed in 1873, and in 1876, Meharry Medical College, the country’s foremost African-American medical school.

The 20th Century   At the turn of the twentieth century, Nashville was one of the South’s most important cities. The nation had elected three presidents from Tennessee (Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, and Andrew Johnson). This newfound significance had culminated 3 years earlier with the ambitious Tennessee Centennial Exposition of 1897, a 6-month long world’s fair commemorating the state’s 100th birthday. It was unusual at the time for a city of our size to host a world’s fair, but 1.8 million people showed up, including Booker T. Washington and President William McKinley. During that year, Susan B. Anthony made her first and only visit to Nashville, which would later become significant when Tennessee tipped the scales to give women the vote.

It was for this event that the full-size reconstruction of the Greek Parthenon was built in Centennial Park. With more than a dozen colleges and a growing reputation as a center of higher education, Nashville was reinforcing its reputation as the Athens of the South. At first, however, Nashville’s nickname was actually the Athens of the West before expanding borders put the city in the middle of the U.S. rather than at the western front. Today the Nashville Parthenon houses Athena, a 41-foot-tall statue that’s the largest piece of indoor sculpture in the Western world. It was meant to be temporary but proved so popular that the city left it in place. Over the years, the building deteriorated and became unsafe to visit, so the city planned to demolish it. However public outcry brought about reconstruction with permanent materials.

During the same time period, trains began using the new Union Station. The grand waiting hall of the Roman-Gothic train station featured a stained-glass ceiling with gilded plasterwork and bas-reliefs, which you can still see today inside Union Station Hotel (p. 51).

In 1920, Tennessee played a pivotal role in passing the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gave women the right to vote. As the 36th state to ratify, the Tennessee vote became crucial to women’s suffrage. Oddly, both the pro-suffrage and antisuffrage organizations were headquartered in the Beaux Arts–style Hermitage Hotel. In 1994, this hotel was completely renovated and is now known as The Hermitage, the city’s premier historic hotel (p. 41).

The 20th century brought the emergence of country music, with the genre’s first recordings coming from Tennessee. Though it took a quarter of a century for hillbilly music to catch on, by 1945 Nashville was the center of the country music world, and that remains true today.

The Lay of the Land

Nashville has a striking skyline with a mix of high-rise and historic