Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Davidson County in Middle Tennessee, located on the Cumberland River. It is the 21st-most populous city in the United States and fourth-most populous city in the Southeast, with a population of 689,447 at the 2020 census. The Nashville metropolitan area, with over 2.15 million people, is the 35th-largest metropolitan area in the country. Nashville is among the fastest-growing cities in the U.S.
Named for Francis Nash, a general of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, the city was founded in 1779 when this territory was still considered part of North Carolina. The city grew quickly due to its strategic location as a port on the Cumberland River and, in the 19th century, a railroad center. Nashville as part of Tennessee seceded during the American Civil War; in 1862 it was the first state capital in the Confederacy to be taken by Union forces. It was occupied through the end of the war. After the war, the city gradually reclaimed its stature. It became a center of trade and developed a manufacturing base.
Since 1963, Nashville has had a consolidated city-county government, which is composed of six smaller municipalities in a two-tier system. The city is governed by a mayor, a vice-mayor, and a 40-member metropolitan council. Thirty-five of the members are elected from single-member districts, while five are elected at-large. Reflecting the city's position in state government, Nashville is home to the Tennessee Supreme Court's courthouse for Middle Tennessee, one of the state's three divisions.
As of 2020, Nashville is considered a global city, type "Gamma" by the GaWC. The city is a major center for the music industry, especially country music, and as such is commonly referred to as Music City. It is home to three major professional sports teams: the Predators, Titans, and Nashville SC. The city is also the home of many colleges and universities including Tennessee State University, Vanderbilt University, Belmont University, Fisk University, Trevecca Nazarene University, and Lipscomb University. Nashville is sometimes referred to as the "Athens of the South" due to the large number of educational institutions. The city is also a major center for the healthcare, publishing, banking, automotive, and technology industries. Entities with headquarters in the city include AllianceBernstein, Asurion, Bridgestone Americas, Captain D's, Concord, Gideons International, Hospital Corporation of America, LifeWay Christian Resources, Logan's Roadhouse, and Ryman Hospitality Properties.
History
18th and 19th centuries
In 1689, French-Canadian trader Martin Chartier established a trading post on the Cumberland River, near the present-day site of the city. In 1714, a group of French traders under the command of Charles Charleville established a settlement and trading post at the present location of downtown Nashville, which became known as French Lick. These settlers quickly established an extensive fur trading network with the local Native Americans, but by the 1740s the settlement had largely been abandoned.In 1779, explorers James Robertson and John Donelson led a party of Overmountain Men to the site of French Lick, and constructed Fort Nashborough. It was named for Francis Nash, the American Revolutionary War hero. Nashville quickly grew because of its strategic location as a port on the Cumberland River, a tributary of the Ohio River; and its later status as a major railroad center. By 1800, the city had 345 residents, including 136 enslaved African Americans and 14 free African Americans. In 1806, Nashville was incorporated as a city and became the county seat of Davidson County, Tennessee. In 1843, the city was named as the permanent capital of the state of Tennessee. Knoxville, Kingston & Murfreesboro were prior locations of the state capital.
The city government of Nashville owned 24 slaves by 1831, and 60 prior to the Civil War. They were "put to work to build the first successful water system and maintain the streets." Auction blocks and brokers' offices were part of the slave market at the heart of the city. It was the center of plantations cultivating tobacco and hemp as commodity crops, in addition to the breeding and training of thoroughbred horses, and other livestock. For years, Nashville was considered one of the wealthiest southern capitals and a large portion of its prominence was from the iron business. Nashville led the south for iron production.
The cholera epidemic that struck Nashville in 1849–1850 took the life of former U.S. President James K. Polk and resulted in high fatalities. There were 311 deaths from cholera in 1849 and an estimated 316 to about 500 in 1850.
Before the Civil War, about 700 free Blacks lived in small enclaves in northern Nashville. More than 3,200 enslaved African Americans lived in the city. By 1860, when the first rumblings of secession began to be heard across the South, antebellum Nashville was a prosperous city.
The city's significance as a shipping port and rail center made it a desirable prize for competing military forces that wanted to control the region's important river and railroad transportation routes. In February 1862, Nashville became the first Confederate state capital to fall to U.S. troops, and the state was occupied by the U.S. Army for the duration of the war. Many enslaved African Americans from Middle Tennessee fled as refugees to Union lines; they were housed in contraband camps around military installations in Nashville's eastern, western, and southern borders. The Battle of Nashville was a significant Union victory and perhaps the most decisive tactical victory gained by either side in the war; it was also the war's final major military action in which Tennessee regiments played a large part on both sides of the battle. Afterward, the Confederates conducted a war of attrition, making guerrilla raids and engaging in small skirmishes. Confederate forces in the Deep South were almost constantly in retreat.
In 1868, three years after the end of the Civil War, the Nashville chapter of the Ku Klux Klan was founded by Confederate veteran John W. Morton. He was reported to have initiated General Nathan Bedford Forrest into the white-supremacist organization. The latter became Grand Wizard of the organization, which had chapters of this secret, insurgent group forming throughout the state and across the South. They opposed voting and political organizing by freedmen, tried to control their behavior by threats, violence and murder, and sometimes also attacked their White allies, including schoolteachers from the North and Freedman's Bureau officials.
Whites directed violence against freedmen and their descendants both during and after the Reconstruction era. Two freedmen, David Jones and Jo Reed, were lynched in Nashville by White mobs in 1872 and 1875, respectively. Reed was hanged from a bridge over the river, but survived after the rope broke and he fell into the water. He successfully escaped the city soon thereafter.
In the aftermath of the Civil War, the Fisk Jubilee Singers of Fisk University in Nashville emerged as a beacon of hope and cultural pride. By 1871, this ensemble began touring the U.S. and Europe, earning international acclaim for their performances of Negro spirituals. Their success not only provided vital funding for their university but also marked Nashville as a significant center for African American music and culture, laying the groundwork for the city's enduring musical legacy.
In 1873, Nashville suffered another cholera epidemic, along with towns throughout Sumner County along railroad routes and the Cumberland River. This was part of a larger epidemic that struck the Mississippi Valley system and other areas of the United States, such as New York and towns along its major lakes and rivers. The epidemic is estimated to have killed around 1,000 people in Nashville, and 50,000 total.
Meanwhile, the city had reclaimed its important shipping and trading position and developed a solid manufacturing base. The post–Civil War years of the late 19th century brought new prosperity to Nashville and Davidson County. Wealthy planters and businessmen built grand, classical-style buildings. A replica of the Parthenon was constructed in Centennial Park, near downtown.
On April 30, 1892, Ephraim Grizzard, an African-American man, was lynched in a spectacle murder in front of a white mob of 10,000 in Nashville. He was a suspect in the assault of two white sisters. His lynching was described by journalist Ida B. Wells as: "A naked, bloody example of the blood-thirstiness of the nineteenth century civilization of the Athens of the South." His brother, Henry Grizzard, had been lynched and hanged on April 24, 1892, in nearby Goodlettsville as a suspect in the same assault incident. From 1877 to 1950, a total of six lynchings of Blacks were conducted in Davidson County, four before the turn of the century.
Earlier 20th century
By the turn of the century, Nashville was home to numerous organizations and individuals associated with revisionist Lost Cause of the Confederacy pseudohistory, and it has been referred to as the "cradle of the Lost Cause". In 1893, the magazine Confederate Veteran began publication in the city. In 1894, the first chapter of United Daughters of the Confederacy was founded in the city, and it hosted the first two conventions of the organization. Prominent proponents of the mythology, the so-called "guardians of the Lost Cause", were concentrated Downtown and in the West End, near Centennial Park.At the same time, Jefferson Street became the historic center of the African American community, with similar districts developing in the Black neighborhoods in East and North Nashville. In 1912, the Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial and Normal School was moved to Jefferson Street. The first Prince's Hot Chicken Shack originated at the corner of Jefferson Street and 28th Avenue in 1945. Jefferson Street became a destination for jazz and blues musicians, and remained so until the federal government split the area by construction of Interstate 40 in the late 1960s.
In 1925, the establishment of the Grand Ole Opry marked the beginning of Nashville's journey as the 'Country Music Capital of the World', drawing musicians and fans alike to the city and setting the stage for its future as a country music powerhouse.