Posted: 3/25/2010 4:05:48 PM EDT
David's our resident historian & I wanted to prod him into giving some background on these pics I took while playing with my camera. Dave has a cool way with words & history. So, Dave.................................... all yours! 
See if ole Dave knows who's statue is on top of the tower? 
Going a bit further down the road....................... 
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My camera wasn't crooked, this sign is....................
This building just oozes history when one walks around & thru it. For those whom may not know, it IS in the "hood" so a daylight run is one's safest bet to visit. 
The floors & ceilings all seem to be still original. They've put in offices, so a lot of drywall has been installed. But when you walk the halls & it's quiet & dark, you can almost hear the ghosts of workers gone by, IMO...................... 
Lots of framed pics of the factory when it was running way back when........................ 
Seems to be an original scale. The wood in the halls all seems original too. 
You can see how piping just got sort of roughed-in but doesn't look too bad. The original wood looks better & older than in this pic, sorry. 
Here's the best business that's open there today..............
This is their winter-time smoking room with heaters. Their tap room is smoke-free. I couldn't get a pic of the tap room as the glare on the window was just too bright from my angle. 
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The statue on top of the Clock tower on Nashville's Union Station is of Mercury, messenger of the gods. It's not a full 3-D statue, but more of a flat place with some relief stamped into it.
It's been damaged over the past 110 years...once being blown off the roof in a storm, & bent up pretty badly (I think that was the late 1990s tornado). Yoiu'd think that the clock in the tower is original, or at least, a copy, but it's not. The original clock in the 1900 building's tower was digital! (no, it didn't have a quartz movement, but it displayed time in this format: 12:00, not the round clock face which is there now. The building was the Nashville Union Station, built by the Nashville, Chattanooga, & St Louis railroad, & replacing a smaller brick structure also on the "gulch", & approximately where the Baptist Sunday School Board buildings sit today. If you travel to St Louis, they also have a Union Station, and, though somewhat larger, it's very obviously a sibling to ours––similar Gothic design features, built of limestone, etc. The Parthenon, centerpiece of Nashville's Centennial Park, was originally built for the Tennessee Centennial Exposition. Tennessee became the 16th state to join the union on 1 June 1796, & the Centennial Exposition was held to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of that event. Unfortunately, there were delays & overruns, & the Exposition did not open until 1897, a year late. The Parthenon was orginally built of plaster, & meant to last around a year, but it was so popular that it was "saved" and rebuild from concrete into a permanent structure. It is the world's only full-scale replica of the Temple of Athena Parthenos (hence, the name "Parthenon") on the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. It is considered the finest example of Greek Architecture in the world. Despite appearing visually perfect, it is not. There is not a straight line in the building; the apparent perfection of the building as a whole is an optical illusion. For example, the columns flare slightly 3/5s of the way up, though they appear to taper gracefully. The silhouette of a Grecian urn is seen if you look down the row of columns between the building & columns. The figures on the frieze represent the ancient Greek gods. The originals are in the British Museum in London, known as the Elgin Marbles. Phidias, the Greek sculptor, created most, if not all of the originals...and they're full 3-D sculptures, not just fronts...the backs of the statues, which would never have been seen, are complete in all details, as well. The Parthenon is one of 3 buildings (of several dozen) that survive from the Tennessee Centennial Exposition. One is now a house on Hwy 96 in Franklin...& I've forgotten where the 3rd one is...hmmmm. The bronze statue to the west of the Parthenon (just out of the picture on the left in Bob's photo of the Parthenon) is of Maj. John Lewis, head of the N C & St L railroad, & the driving force behind the Exposition, as well. Ever wonder why Centennial Park is where it is, & why there's that big 4-8-4 locomotive on display there? Because Maj. Lewis, head of the RR, used his influence as head of the Exposition board to get the city to buy/lease the land from the RR...and the railroad's roundhouse & shops were just to the north, between the HCA buildings & Charlotte. His grave's pretty neat, too...but you didn't get a photo of it... There, Bob...did I tie all that together for you? 
David |
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Quoted:
There, Bob...did I tie all that together for you?
David Pretty much.
I was unaware of his grave site being in the park. I'm going to have to go back & look for it. My dad helped set the Air Force jet there back in the 1960s.
I was also unaware of the house out on Hwy 96 from the IE in 1896! No wonder we call you when we need ya!
Were you aware of the Marathon Motor Works? 
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Quoted:
Quoted:
There, Bob...did I tie all that together for you?
David Pretty much.
I was unaware of his grave site being in the park. I'm going to have to go back & look for it. My dad helped set the Air Force jet there back in the 1960s.
I was also unaware of the house out on Hwy 96 from the IE in 1896! No wonder we call you when we need ya!
Were you aware of the Marathon Motor Works? Well, Maj. Lewis (no relation, AFAIK) isn't buried in Centennial Park...he's in Mt. Olivet. I'll give you a hint: it's one of the more unusual monuments there, & just barely visible from Lebanon Rd...if you know where to look! Yes, I knew about Marathon Motor Works, but you pretty much covered it...with the photo of the Historic Commission sign, Yazoo City Brewery, & the don't go after dark warning.
That's cool about the jet...tell us more, please! David |
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That's cool about the jet...tell us more, please! Not too much to tell. The TN ANG out at Berry Field wanted some sort of "presence" there, IMO & a cargo plane was going to be too big. I believe at one time, the Nashville wing was going to get fighters instead of the cargo planes they ended up with. (I personally think Ft. Campbell being close by hastened the decision towards cargo planes, but I digress.) So anyway, they got an empty fighter shell used for static displays & someone fabricated the mount & they re-enforced the bottom of the plane to be able to handle the mount & wind storms. About a dozen of them went out there with a small crane after the mount was poured & cured & it went right on. I am more intrigued by how they got the locomotive there. I assume they simply pushed it there & then tore out the tracks other than the ones it actually sits on? While there used to be a railyard around there, all tracks have long been since pulled up and/or paved over. A crane sure as heck isn't going to lift that thing, IMO. The locomotive appears to be not stripped of much of anything outside of the cab. The doesn't seem to be anything done to lighten the weight, IOW. I hope to get pics of Nashville's oldest house still standing & being inhabited today. It's also in the oddest part of town for this sort of thing too, IMO. Know where it is?
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Bob––
The locomotive was simply parked on tracks, then everything else pulled up. As I said, the roundhouse & shop yards for the N C & St L were back there...back then. Some railroad buff I talked to about it at some point told me that a group of restorers wanted to work on the loco & bring it back to running order. If it were in Chattanooga, at the Tennessee Valley RailRoad Museum, it might be possible...but I don't ever see it happening here. Simply no resources. If you've clambered around it, there's a lot of rust, & a lot of black paint sealing things together, too. The Parks Dept finally built the shed over it to slow down the effects of weather, but there's already been a whole lot of damage, IMO. Do you mean the McCambell-Born house in Donelson? It was built before TN became a state! Didn't know it was currently inhabited, though, since William Baker, the owner, died last year. David |
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Do you mean the McCambell-Born house in Donelson? It was built before TN became a state! Didn't know it was currently inhabited, though, since William Baker, the owner, died last year. I was unaware of this house in Donelson, where is it? There's a real old house right by Lebanon Road & Briley Pkwy in Donelson. The oldest house continuely inhabited in Nashville is off Reeves Road in (gasp!) Antioch! Some Vandy professor lives in it (or used to). It's been documented as being the oldest single home structure that began as a house & not something converted to a house. I didn't get out there yesterday but will try to do so next week. |
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The McCambell house is off McCambell Ave (oddly enough!)...it's been some time since I've driven by it, so I'm a bit fuzzy, but
I think it's on Kent, between Hastings & Surrey. Turn onto McCambell from Donelson PIke. Kent Dr is the 2nd right, & Hastings is the 1st left. It's the 2-story brick on the corner. I can't think of the name of the house on Lebanon Rd & Briley...but I've heard some interesting stories about it...secret passages/rooms, etc. A classmate in HS was friends with the family living there, & had been in it several times. Not sure if I knew about the house in Antioch. I'll try to lock & load & go see it!
David |
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One of our local (Donelson) homes. I remember the last McGavock decendant living there in the 1960s. It's now open for parties, weddings & such. An apartment is in the upper back of the house & usually a Park Ranger or Metro cop lives there for virtually free when one can be found that wants to live there.
I believe at one time the McGavocks owned about all of Donelson from around Lebanon Road/McGavock Pike to the Cumberland River, what's known as "Pennington Bend". 
This is the house that was built in 1802, as a starter home? 
Interesting that there's one door on one side of the house & two on the other................................. 
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Neither Tulip Grove nor the Hermitage are "McGavock Mansions", i.e., built by members of the McGavock family.
Those two are Jacksonian, with the Hermitage built by Andy himself (well, at his direction, anyway) & by a niece & her husband (Tulip Grove) The other two McGavock mansions are in Franklin––I'm sure you know one of them: Carnton. The other is in the middle of the Forrest Crossing subdivision, off Mack Hatcher. I don't know it's name, & it's not open to the public. I didn't know that it even existed until a couple of years ago, when we stumbled upon it at a neighborhood garage sale. We''d always thought there were only 3 surviving McGavock houses. All 4 McGavock houses bear a distinctly similar style, though all are different, too. David |
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There's another house over off 4th Ave. South, in between the train tracks & the start of Nolensville Road, off in that industrial section to the right just south of the train tracks. It's a pretty big house hidden by large shrubbery but you can see it via their driveway. It appears the owners are working on it themselves, so their work isn't too terribly fast.
But what's odd is that it's now surrounded by virtually all commercial development. I'll try to get pics of it too this week. |
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I'll once again implore David to add his narrative to these. I'd like to know if the house burning was ever considered arson or not? I know there were a LOT of fires back then due to candles, oil lamps, bad chimneys, etc.
The Hermitage requires a fee to enter, as now does Tulip Grove & the Confederate cemetery. I didn't have enough time to want to pay the fee & not get the pics I wanted to get. 
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Quoted:
I'll once again implore David to add his narrative to these. I'd like to know if the house burning was ever considered arson or not? I know there were a LOT of fires back then due to candles, oil lamps, bad chimneys, etc. Bob, I'd have said either chimney or kitchen fire...but since kitchens were generally in a separate building...that would lead one back to the chimney, IMO. The Hermitage's web site says this about the 1834 fire: After a chimney fire seriously damaged the mansion on October 13, 1834, President Jackson hired noted Nashville architects and master builders Joseph Reiff and William C. Hume to rebuild the mansion into a stately Greek Revival-style monument. Reiff and Hume completed the repairs in 1836. In 1837, Jackson retired from the U.S. presidency and returned to The Hermitage.
So, it seems to have been the chimney. David |