Nashville, TN

Last weekend I accompanied Kathleen to Nashville, the capital and largest city in Tennessee. She was refereeing at the Percy Priest Sprints, a rowing regatta outside of town, and I tagged along to see a new-to-me city, snap another state capitol selfie and visit our nephew and his family. 

Nashville, population 700,000, was founded in 1779, when the territory was still part of North Carolina. The city was named after General Francis Nash, an officer in the Continental Army during the American Revolution, who died of wounds suffered at the Battle of Germantown, PA. Nashville is nicknamed “Music City” and is home to the Grand Ole Opry, Country Music Hall of Fame, Johnny Cash Museum, Ryman Auditorium and more than 250 venues offering live musical entertainment. It has also been called the “Athens of the South,” due to the large number of colleges and universities located here, including Vanderbilt, Tennessee State and Fisk Universities. Map link: Nashville,TN

Friday, March 27: We arrived two hours early at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport, worried about long security lines due to the partial government shutdown. The airport was a sea of spring break travelers, but we got through the TSA Pre-check line in under 30 minutes. After landing in Nashville and picking up our rental car, we ate brunch at Flat Tire Diner, a greasy spoon with excellent food and service. 

Today was a sightseeing day and our first stop was Hermitage, the plantation home of Andrew Jackson, our 7th president. Born in North Carolina in 1767, Jackson was a wealthy planter who became a national hero during the War of 1812, famously repelling the British at the Battle of New Orleans. He lost a close 1824 presidential election to John Quincy Adams, but changes to voting laws—primarily removing the requirement of landownership—paved the way for an easy victory in 1828. His beloved wife Rachel never served as first lady; she died of a heart attack shortly after the election. When the two first met, she was unhappily married and eventually eloped with Jackson, believing that her divorce was finalized, which it was not. The scandal surrounding Rachel’s unintentional adultery and bigamy caused her great stress—she dreaded moving to Washington after the inauguration and sank into depression. Jackson believed that this led directly to her death at age 61, and he always blamed his political enemies and society gossips for her demise. At Rachel’s funeral, he stated “May God Almighty forgive her murderers, I never can.”

History is often messy, and Jackson’s legacy is complicated and controversial. He earned the nickname “Old Hickory” from his toughness in battle as well as his prickly sense of honor and volatile temper, and his personal motto was “I was born for a storm, and a calm does not suit me.” He was immensely popular during his two terms in office; seen not only as a war hero but as a champion for the common man. He abolished the U.S. National Bank, an institution that he saw as elitist, and paid off the national debt in 1835, the only time in our history that this has ever been accomplished. Jackson owned more than 160 slaves, was known as a harsh master and signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, leading to the forced relocation of tens of thousands of natives from the American Southeast over the next two decades. The removal efforts became known as the Trail of Tears, where thousands of Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole natives perished from starvation, exposure and disease on their way to reservations in Oklahoma. Map link: Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage

Our next stop was the home of the Grand Ole Opry, where live country music has been broadcast since 1927, the longest running radio show in U.S. history. The Opry moved into its current 4,000-seat location on Nashville’s east side in 1974. Fun fact: President Richard Nixon attended the opening night performance, and played a few songs on the piano. Across the parking lot are the Opryland Convention Center and Opry Mills Mall, built on the former site of the Opryland USA amusement park. Map link: Grand Ole Opry

We drove south to J. Percy Priest Lake, a 14,000-acre man-made reservoir on the Stones River, named for a local congressman, to do some recon for Kathleen’s regatta the next day. After getting the lay of the land (and water), we returned to Nashville and made a brief stop at the city’s full-scale replica of The Parthenon, built as an art museum and attraction for the 1897 Tennessee Centennial Exposition and celebrating Nashville’s nickname of “The Athens of the South.” Lastly, we went to the home of our nephew Robert, his wife Danielle and their daughter Bertie, where they had prepared a feast for our arrival—chicken wings, potatoes, beans and salad… When we were in France for the holidays, our visit overlapped with theirs in Paris, and we spent some time together, including the celebration of Bertie’s 6th birthday. Post link: Nogent-sur-Marne, France

Saturday, March 28: We woke up early and left the house at 5:15 AM to get Kathleen to the lake in time for the regatta’s referee meeting at 6:00 AM. It was still dark when I dropped her off, then I grabbed some breakfast and planned my day of solo sightseeing. My first stop was an interesting working sundial made out of airplane wings, something I’d found on Roadside America’s website, one of my go-to sources for offbeat tourist attractions. Web link: RoadsideAmerica.com

Next I drove to Stones River National Battlefield in Murfreesboro, about 30 miles south of Nashville, timing my arrival for the park’s 9:00 AM opening. When I arrived, a group of reenactors were holding some kind of training at the edge of the field. In December 1862, the Union Army was hungry for a victory, after being stymied at Vicksburg and routed at Fredericksburg. Central Tennessee was a key transportation and supply hub, with major railroads at Nashville and Chattanooga, and controlling it was a key goal of President Lincoln’s. At dawn on December 31, 1862, Confederate forces attacked the advancing Union Army, initially driving them back. The Union lines regrouped, and the two sides suffered heavy casualties in a day-long stalemate. On New Year’s Day, both armies rested, treated their wounded and buried their dead. The Confederates attacked again on January 2, 1863, and gained ground, only to run straight into Union artillery, which stopped the charge, killing 1,800 men in minutes, and the Union held the field at the end of the day. The federals maintained control of the region for the remainder of the war, built a major supply depot and used it as a staging area to capture and occupy Chattanooga and Atlanta. The battle was one of the bloodiest in the war, with more than 23,500 killed, wounded or missing on both sides, about 30% of the 81,000 men who fought here. I have a deep interest in the Civil War, and have always referred to this engagement as Murfreesboro, not Stones River, highlighting a key difference in how the Union and Confederacy named the same battles. The Union Army generally used topographical maps for navigating the terrain, and named conflicts after landmarks or natural features, while the Confederates typically used railroad maps, naming battles after the nearest town. Besides Stones River/Murfreesboro, other well-known examples include Antietam (Creek)/Sharpsburg , Bull Run/Manassas, and Pittsburg Landing/Shiloh. 

Trenches are still visible after 162 years

Next I took a walking tour of Nashville, with the Tennessee State Capitol first on my list. Completed in 1859 on the highest point downtown, it is one of 12 capitols in the U.S. without a central dome. On the grounds is the tomb of our 11th president, James Polk, and his wife, Sarah. A successful lawyer, former governor of Tennessee, congressman and protégé of Andrew Jackson, Polk is the only president to have served as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. He strongly believed in Manifest Destiny and American expansionism, arguably the biggest political issue of the day. Texas joined the union during his first year in office, which helped precipitate the Mexican-American War. At war’s end, the U.S. had acquired the entire American Southwest, including California, connecting the nation to the Pacific Ocean. Polk also negotiated with Great Britain over the disputed Oregon Territory, resulting in even more land and the present U.S.-Canada border along the 49th parallel. During his presidency, Polk added more than one million square miles to the United States, the most in American history.

When elected in 1844, Polk pledged to serve a single term, and was one of only a few presidents to keep that promise. He died of cholera in 1849 at the age of 53, only three months after leaving the White House. He was initially buried in the Nashville City Cemetery in a special section—the law at the time required that cholera victims be interred within 24 hours of death. His remains were later relocated to the front yard of Polk Place, his Downtown Nashville mansion, and he was joined there by Sarah upon her death in 1891—both graves were moved to the capitol grounds in 1893. During the Civil War, Polk Place was spared by both sides out of respect for the former president, and Union General Ulysses S. Grant frequently visited the former first lady. Sadly, the house fell victim to infighting between the Polks’ heirs and downtown redevelopment efforts, and it was demolished in 1901.

I walked to the Nashville waterfront on the Cumberland River, which Kathleen and I cruised briefly in October, 2023 (post link: Cumberland River). My first stop was the reconstructed Fort Nashborough, a short-lived stockade built in 1779 for the protection of settlers and not an actual military garrison. Across the river and next to Nissan Stadium, home of the NFL’s Tennessee Titans, hundreds of people assembled for the third “No Kings” march in protest of the Trump Administration, one of 3,000 such demonstrations in the country. 

I turned away from the river onto Broadway Street, aka the “Honkytonk Highway,” a four-block collection of bars, clubs, shops and more bars, most featuring live music. The streets were busy with cars, party buses and pedal pubs, many with patrons well lubricated at noon on a Saturday. Next I visited Ryman Auditorium, originally the Union Gospel Tabernacle, built in 1892 by Nashville businessman Thomas Ryman. It was the original home of the Grand Ole Opry, hosting the famous show from 1943 to 1974, before falling into disrepair then restored in the 1990s to regain its prominence as a premier Nashville performance hall.  

I ate Indian food for lunch at the Assembly Hall food court, next door to the National Museum of African American Music, then walked back to my car, passing Bridgestone Auditorium, where the Nashville Predators hockey team plays, and the former site of Polk Place, now the Capitol Hotel. I left downtown and drove the 30 minutes to Percy Priest Lake, stopping by the Priest Dam on the Stones River that created the lake. I parked, took a short hike and watched the rest of the Priest Sprints rowing regatta from the shore. When Kathleen finished around 5:00 PM, we went out for Mexican food at Chuy’s, did a little shopping, then went back to Robert and Danielle’s house. Map link: Percy Priest Lake

Bonus Question: FICO scores are an indication of a borrower’s creditworthiness. What does FICO mean? (answer at end of post)

Sunday, March 29: We slept in, had some breakfast, then took a quick tour of Downtown Nashville, passing the Country Music Hall of Fame, Nashville Garden, Country Walk of Fame, Johnny Cash Museum and Ryman Auditorium before braving the Broadway Street crowds, which were already growing on a pleasant Sunday morning. We walked across the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge spanning the Cumberland River, getting a closer look at Nissan Stadium and its next-door replacement, slated to be ready for the 2027 season. 

Next we drove to the state capitol mall, browsing and eating lunch at the Nashville Farmer’s Market, then visited a WWII Memorial before spending two hours at the Tennessee State Museum. We had heard that the tulips were in bloom at Cheekwood Estate in the upscale suburb of Belle Meade, but the line of cars in the parking lot told us that it was popular and crowded. Instead, we opted for a hike in Percy Warner park, a 3,100-acre park that was once the Belle Meade Plantation. We ate dinner at the Radish Kitchen, then returned back to the house after a second consecutive 12,000-step day.

Monday, March 30: We set an early alarm to catch our 7:30 AM flight home. Clearing through TSA security at the Nashville Airport took 10 minutes, about the fastest that we’ve ever done it. Our Southwest Airlines flight was uneventful and we Ubered home from MSP Terminal 2 after another successful trip. 

Bonus Question Answer: The FICO score was introduced in 1989 by the Fair Isaac Corporation, which named it after the company’s initials. Founded in 1956 by Bill Fair and Earl Isaac, they standardized credit analysis and developed the scoring range of 300-850, which is used in 90% of consumer lending decisions. FYI, the number one driver of your credit score is payment history—i.e. paying your bills on time.