Nashville

1. Introduction

Located in the rolling hills of middle Tennessee, Nashville is the state capital. Home of the Grand Ole Opry since the 1920s, it is the country-and-western music capital of the world. The city of Andrew Jackson, it combines the grace and warmth of the Old South with the economic vitality of today's Sun Belt states. The rising popularity of country music in the past two decades has created a booming entertainment industry in Nashville, spurring tourism and attracting new residents with jobs at all levels of the music business. The city retains its traditional strength in the trucking and financial services sectors and has also become the capital of privatized health care with the growth and merger of HCA and Columbia Health Care.

As home to the first public education system in the South, as well as the site of the pilot project on which the nationwide Head Start programs were modeled, Nashville is also a leader in the field of education. When it merged its city and county governments in the 1960s, the city also became a pioneer in the development of metropolitan government.

2. Getting There

Nashville, which has one of the largest geographical areas of any U.S. city, is located in central Tennessee, on both banks of the Cumberland River and surrounded on three sides by the Highland Rim, which rises up to 122 meters (400 feet) above the elevation level of the city.

Highways

More than 129 kilometers (80 miles) of interstate highway pass through Nashville. The major interstates are I-65 (north-south) and I-40 (east-west between Knoxville and Memphis and further in both directions). I-265 forms a ring around Downtown Nashville, and I-440 encircles midtown Nashville. I-24, running southeast to northwest, also leads into the metropolitan area, merging into I-40 to the south and I-65 to the north.

Bus and Railroad Service

Interstate bus service to all parts of the country is available on Greyhound, whose terminal is downtown on Eighth Avenue South. Amtrak service is not directly available in Nashville; the closest connection is through Memphis.

Airport

Originally constructed as a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project and opened as Berry Field in 1937, today Nashville International Airport provides air service to almost 90 cities in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, averaging 388 arriving and departing flights daily. The airport, which covers 76,178 square meters (820,000 square feet) and has 47 carrier gates, is serviced by 16 carriers. In 1998, Nashville International Airport handled over eight million passengers.

Shipping

Nashville's extensive network of interstate highways and 100 freight terminals have made the city an important regional trucking center, and it is served by 135 trucking carriers. The city is also a rail hub for the Southeast, with local railroads handling about 80 freight trains per day. Another major mode of shipping in the area is barge traffic on the Cumberland River, which connects Nashville to both the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico.

3. Getting Around

Nashville is laid out in a grid pattern that straddles and is oriented to the Cumberland River. Numbered streets run parallel to the river in a northwest to southeast direction while the perpendicular named streets run southwest to northeast. Bridges cross the river at Jefferson and Spring streets, the James Robertson Parkway, Union and Woodland streets, and Shelby Avenue.

Bus and Commuter Rail Service

The Metropolitan Transit Authority of Nashville operates hourly bus service to most areas of the city, as well as a motorized trolley in the downtown area during daytime hours. Private automobiles are the preferred mode of transit for most Nashville residents, and use of public transportation is relatively light.

Sightseeing

A one-and-a-half hour guided walking tour of the city beginning at Fort Nashborough is offered by the nonprofit Historic Nashville, Inc. on Saturday mornings in May through October. The Metropolitan Nashville Historical Commission provides maps for self-guided walking and driving tours, including the African-American Historic Sites Tour and the Battle of Nashville Driving Tour. Commercial companies offering tours include Grand Old Opry Tours, Johnny Walker Tours, and Country & Western/Gray Line Tours.

4. People

In 1990, the population of Nashville was 488,000, with the following racial and ethnic composition: 74.1 percent were white; 24.3 percent black; 1.4 percent Asian; and 0.2 percent Native American. The population estimate for 1994 was 505,000.

The population of the Nashville Metropolitan Statistical Area was reported as 985,026 in 1990 and estimated at 1,134,524 as of 1997. The region's racial composition was listed by the U.S. Census Bureau in 1996 as 82.6 percent white; 15.7 percent black; and 1.4 percent Asian/Pacific Islander. The percentage of residents of Hispanic origin (an ethnic rather than a racial designation) was 1.1 percent.

5. Neighborhoods

Dominated by the state capitol building and War Memorial Plaza, downtown Nashville is located near the riverfront and the site of historic Fort Nashborough, built by Nashville's early settlers. In addition to the capitol, the city's historic landmarks, and its older commercial buildings, this area is home to Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park, commemorating Tennessee history with gardens and stone inscriptions and located at the foot of the capitol. Also located in the downtown area are a two-story shopping arcade between Fourth and Fifth Avenues, built in 1903; the Printer's Alley Historic District and the Nashville Farmers Market; the Ryman Auditorium, original home of the Grand Ole Opry; and two other well-known musical landmarks—Ernest Tubb's Record Shop and Gruhn Guitars. Riverfront Park, at First Avenue and Broadway, is a popular venue for musical events. In recent years, lower Broadway and Printer's Alley have developed into the commercialized and crowded area known as "the District," which attracts crowds of both tourists and locals.

Midtown Nashville, encompasses an area bounded roughly by I-70 on the north, Fourteenth Avenue on the east, Blair Boulevard on the south, and Natchez Trace and Centennial Park on the west. This district is home to both Vanderbilt University and Belmont University, as well as Centennial Park. The Music Row area on Sixteenth and Seventeenth Avenues includes a number of country music-oriented museums and souvenir shops, the Country Music Hall of Fame, and a variety of recording studios and music publishers.

The area north of I-40 is home to a historic visitors center built at the site of the first Dutch settlement in the region. Tennessee State University and Fisk University are also located in this area, as is the Nashville Zoo. To the east of I-65 and north of I-40 is Opryland USA, a large music and entertainment complex that includes the Grand Ole Opry House, an associated theme park and museum, a theater, and the studios of TNN (The Nashville Network) television, scene of regular performance tapings open to the public.

South and west of the city lie natural and recreational areas, such as the Cheekwood mansion and gardens, Percy Warner Park and Golf Course, and Radnor Lake State Natural Area. Residential areas are primarily found in the north and east, including the suburbs of Belle Meade, Green Hills, and Harpeth Hills.

6. History

The area of present-day Nashville was occupied by Cherokee and Chickasaw Indians when the first Europeans—French traders—arrived there in the eighteenth century and built trading posts. The first permanent settlement was founded at Christmas time of 1779 by pioneer families from North Carolina and eastern Tennessee led by James Robertson. A second party led by John Donelson arrived the following spring, and the new settlement, consisting of log cabins, was named Nashborough for General Francis Nash, a Revolutionary War hero. Most of the settlers retreated to Kentucky later the same year as a result of Indian attacks, incited by the British as part of the ongoing Revolutionary War (1776–1783).

Nevertheless, the remnant of the community was incorporated in 1784, and its name changed to the less British-sounding "Nashville." The settlement prospered, as schools, churches, and businesses were founded, and Tennessee gained its statehood in 1796. In the early years of the nineteenth century, a young lawyer named Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) gained increasing prominence in Nashville as a military hero of the Creek War and the War of 1812, a member of Congress, and, by 1830, the seventh president of the United States. During this period, steamboats were introduced to Nashville, and the city became a center for river trade. New waves of settlers from the east, as well as immigrants from England, Scotland, and Ireland, boosted its population and work force. In 1843 Nashville was named the capital of Tennessee.

In 1861 Nashville's citizens joined their fellow Tennesseans in voting to secede from the Union, and Tennessee became the eleventh and last state in the Confederacy. The following year, the city was invaded by Union forces, which occupied it for the next three years, commandeering its railroads and river transport facilities. Tennessee's Confederates made a final, unsuccessful attempt to retake the city in Battle of Nashville—one of the bloodiest of the war—in December 1864.

By the mid-1870s the city had largely recovered from the war and began to enjoy consistent economic progress and development, accompanied by cultural and educational advances, including the establishment of Vanderbilt and Fisk universities. A milestone in the city's postwar progress was the 1897 Tennessee Centennial Exposition. The Union Station railroad terminal was built for the exposition, and a replica of the Parthenon, also built for the occasion, was later duplicated in the permanent version that still stands today. Also on display was the technological innovation of electric lighting.

In the twentieth century, both financial services and manufacturing thrived in Nashville, the former led by the National Life and Accident and Life & Casualty insurance companies, and the latter boosted by wartime demand during the world wars. It was on National Life's radio station, WSM, that the Grand Ole Opry broadcasts were inaugurated and grew into a popular local phenomenon. In the 1930s and 1940s, federal projects, including the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), brought new jobs and infrastructure modernization to the city. Nashville also benefited greatly from the development of the federal highway system, which made the city a trucking and rail freight center. The TVA made electricity for home heating available in the 1940s.

In the postwar years, the new highways and the ascendance of the automobile brought suburbanization to Nashville, as well as other cities throughout the country, and city services became increasingly fragmented. In the 1950s a pioneering plan for consolidated city-county administration was proposed; it became a reality in 1963 with the formation of the Nashville-Davidson metropolitan government. Efficient government has enabled the city to launch urban rehabilitation and development projects that have boosted the economy by spurring downtown retail and commercial development, as well as tourism.

With the introduction of country-and-western music into the commercial mainstream since the 1970s, Nashville has won new prominence as one of the nation's musical capitals. Even though its traditional insurance, publishing, education, and health sectors remained strong, Nashville in the late 1990s was positioned as a major sports and entertainment venue with the construction of a major new sports arena and other development projects.

7. Government

The Nashville Metropolitan Charter, drafted in 1962, made Nashville a leader in the development of a consolidated city-county government. The Nashville-Davidson County metropolitan government was inaugurated in 1963 and is still in place, headed by a mayor and a 40-member metropolitan council consisting of five members at large and 35 representatives elected by district. Its bi-monthly meetings are televised on a cable government-access channel.

8. Public Safety

In 1995, Nashville-Davidson's incidence of reported violent crimes per 100,000 population was 1,790, including 20 murders, 93 rapes, and 511 robberies. The incidence of property crimes was 8,920 and included 1,573 burglaries and 1,560 motor vehicle thefts.

9. Economy

Banks and insurance companies were among Nashville's first businesses and have remained an important part of the economy. Banks headquartered in the city include Bank of Nashville, First American, and Citizen's Bank. Nashville is also home to the securities firm J. C. Bradford. American General Life Insurance has remained in the city after acquiring two other locally based companies and is now linked to Nashville's entertainment industry as a subsidiary of the Gaylord Entertainment Network, which owns the Ryman Auditorium, former home of the Grand Ole Opry, and the Opryland Theme Park.

Nashville is also a center of the private healthcare industry as home to Columbia-HCA, the largest operator of for-profit hospitals in the country. This sector has also gone in new directions, spinning off companies in child care and prison management.

Nashville's location in the Sun Belt puts it in prime manufacturing territory. Nissan Motors located its first U.S. plant here in the early 1980s. In the 1990s, a Saturn plant was operating in nearby Spring Hill, and the area is also home to a Bridgestone-Firestone plant.

Media and communications are represented by BellSouth, headquartered downtown, and the publishing and electronic media firm Ingram Industries.

10. Environment

Nashville is situated amid rolling hills and abundant natural vegetation. The Highland Rim forms a natural escarpment around the city, encircling it on three sides. Nashville extends across both banks of the Cumberland River, and there are two lakes—Old Hickory Lake and the J. Percy Priest Lake—east of the city.

11. Shopping

As in many other American cities, much of Nashville's retail trade has relocated to malls in the surrounding areas. Urban shopping centers include Church Street Centre, in the heart of the city's traditional retail district; Market Street, which houses a variety of small shops and restaurants; the Eighth Avenue antique district; and Hillsboro Village, a two-block shopping area with clothing, housewares, crafts, and other retailers. Suburban malls in the Nashville area include Bellevue Center, Coolspings Galleria, Hickory Hollow Mall, the Mall at Green Hills, and One Hundred Oaks Mall.

Souvenirs can be purchased at the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Centennial Park museum shop. With an encyclopedia inventory that occupies three floors, Gruhn Guitars is considered by some to be the best guitar store in the country.

12. Education

The nickname "Athens of the South" comes not only from the Nashville's replica of the Greek Parthenon but also from its reputation for educational excellence. It was home to the first public education system in the South, established in 1855. One-hundred years later, three prominent African-American residents of Nashville mounted one of the nation's first school desegregation lawsuits. Nashville was also a pioneer in early-childhood education for disadvantaged children—the prototype for Head Start programs was developed by a teacher there.

The Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools, the nation's forty-ninth largest urban school district, are attended by 83 percent of the city's school-aged children. The system encompasses 127 schools, including magnet programs, special education schools, alternative schools, and an adult education center. Total enrollment in 1998–99 was 69,400. The racial and ethnic breakdown was 47.7 percent white, 45.4 percent black, 3.3 percent Hispanic, 3.2 percent Asian, and 0.2 percent Native American. The schools are administered by a nine-member elected school board and an appointed director of schools.

Nashville is home to more than a dozen institutions of higher education, including Vanderbilt University, Tennessee State University, Scarritt College, George Peabody College, Belmont University, and Fisk University. Vanderbilt University, founded in 1873 and funded by rail and shipping magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, is a private teaching and research university. Its ten schools, including schools of engineering, nursing, law, and medicine, enroll approximately 10,000 students in undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs. Fisk University, established in 1866, was one of the nation's first black colleges.

Tennessee State University, a coeducational land-grant university located on a 182-hectare (450-acre) campus west of downtown Nashville, enrolls some 8,200 students. It is one of 46 public colleges and universities administered by the Tennessee Board of Regents.

13. Health Care

Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) encompasses Vanderbilt Hospital, the Vanderbilt Clinic, the university's schools of medicine and nursing, and a variety of other facilities. VUMC employs over 8,000 persons, making it middle Tennessee's largest private employer and the second largest in the state. Vanderbilt University Hospital has 658 beds housed in a twin-towered facility that is also home to the region's only Level I trauma center and Level I burn center. Several of the hospital's departments, including cancer, endocrinology, and gynecology, have won nationwide recognition. In 1997, the Vanderbilt clinic recorded nearly 29,000 admissions and scheduled 473,000 outpatient visits. Specialty clinics associated with VUMC include the Henry-Joyce Cancer Clinic and Clinical Research Center. The School of Medicine was ranked fourteenth nationwide in a U.S. News & World Report survey in 1997.

Other major hospitals in the Nashville area include Baptist Hospital, Metropolitan General Hospital, Nashville Memorial, St. Thomas Hospital, and the following Columbia Health System hospitals: Centennial, Hendersonville, Southern Hills, and Summit.

14. Media

The Tennessean, a morning daily, is Nashville's major newspaper. In 1998 it has a circulation of 184,979 during the week and 269,959 on Sunday. Nashville also has a daily afternoon newspaper, the Nashville Banner, as well as a weekly alternative paper, the Nashville Scene, which covers local news and entertainment. Both the Metropolitan Times and Nashville Pride are weekly newspapers serving Nashville's black community. Trade magazines published in Nashville focus on insurance, banking, agriculture, music, education, and other fields.

All major television networks have affiliates in Nashville, which has a total of seven commercial television stations, and about 30 AM and FM radio stations provide news, music, and local features to the Nashville area.

15. Sports

Nashville is home to the former Houston Oilers football team, now the Tennessee Titans, who began playing at the brand-new 67,000-seat Adelphia Coliseum stadium in 1999. The city also has a Triple-A minor league baseball team, the Nashville Sounds (the farm team for the Chicago White Sox), and a Central Hockey League team, the Nashville Night Hawks.

College sports have an enthusiastic following in Nashville, home to both Vanderbilt University and Tennessee State University, both of which are known for their football teams and other sports.

The Nashville Speedway hosts stock-car racing every weekend. Special sporting events held in Nashville annually include the Iroquois Memorial Steeplechase, held at Percy Warner Park each May, and the Sara Lee Classic Ladies Professional Golfer's Association Tournament, also in May at Hermitage Golf Course. Pro wrestling is a popular spectator sport in the area.

16. Parks and Recreation

Nashville has about 70 city parks, both large and small, giving the city roughly 2,833 hectares (7,000 acres) of park land altogether. In addition, the surrounding areas include several state parks and nature reserves, such as Long Hunter and Radnor Lake.

Nashville's newest park is the 8-hectare (19-acre) Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park, downtown next to the capitol building. Built to celebrate the bicentennial of Tennessee's statehood in 1997, the park features river fountains, an amphitheater, and a 61-meter (200-foot) map of Tennessee carved in granite. Park rangers offer organized tours of the park. The Tennessee centennial celebration 100 years earlier also left Nashville with a park: Centennial Park at West End and Twenty-Fifth Avenue, whose best-known feature is its replica of the Greek Parthenon. The park also includes a small lake, statues, sports facilities, and a band shell.

The adjoining Percy Warner and Edwin Warner Parks (covering approximately 834 hectares/2,060 acres combined) make up one of the country's largest urban parks and offer riding and biking trails, a nature center, picnic shelters, playing fields, and a racing course. Other city parks include Reservoir Park, Sevier Park, Shelby Park, and Two Rivers Park. Adding to the city's green space are the Cheekwood Botanical Gardens and International Garden.

Bledsoe State Park, northeast of Nashville, offers lodging and campgrounds, horse trails, hiking, and swimming. Recreational activities are also offered at Long Hunter State Park about 30 minutes southeast of Nashville. Radnor Lake State Natural Area to the south is a nature preserve and sanctuary for observation, research, photography, and hiking.

Swimming in the area's pools, lakes, and rivers is the number-one recreational activity during Nashville's hot, humid summer. The area's rolling terrain is enjoyed by cyclists, equestrians, and golfers. Camping, boating, canoeing, and fishing are other popular outdoors activities in the region.

17. Performing Arts

Although known primarily as the capital of country-and-western music, Nashville also has regular classical music concerts by the Nashville Symphony and Nashville Opera. The music departments of the city's universities also enrich the classical music scene through such resources as the Vanderbilt Orchestra and both student and faculty performances sponsored by Vanderbilt's Blair School of Music and the Belmont University School of Music. In addition, the Friends of Music brings touring artists and ensembles to the city, and the Scarritt-Bennett Center Series features free performances by local musicians.

Nashville's theater troupes include the Tennessee Repertory Theater, Circle Players, Lakewood Theater Company, the Nashville Shakespeare Festival, and Mockingbird Public Theatre. The American Negro Playwright Theater presents plays focusing on the African American experience and heritage, as does Blue Wave Productions. The Nashville Ballet has been offering regular dance concerts since the 1980s, and the Tennessee Dance Theater concentrates on modern dance. Touring dance groups are brought to Nashville in concert series sponsored by such groups as Friends of Music, the Tennessee Performing Arts Center, and Vanderbilt University.

As the home of the Grand Ole Opry and the major center for recordings of country-and-western music, Nashville is the world's undisputed capital of country music, a position celebrated in the city's nickname of "Music City USA." Live performances by both established and up-and-coming country artists can be heard weekly at the Grand Ole Opry House in Opryland USA. Country, folk, and rock concerts still take place at historic Ryman Auditorium, home of the Opry from its inception in the 1920s until the 1970s and newly restored in 1994. Other Nashville venues for country music are the "Midnight Jamboree" at Ernest Tubb's Record Shop, which is broadcast live on WSM-AM radio; taping sessions of the "Prime Time Country" television show at the TNN studios; and Nashville on Stage. A variety of local clubs also feature country music.

18. Libraries and Museums

Founded in 1904, the Public Library of Nashville and Davidson County operates a central library downtown and 18 neighborhood branches. With a total of 262,800 book titles and 781,800 volumes, the library serves a population of more than half a million and employs a staff of 248. It has special collections in the subject areas of business, Nashville genealogy and history, children's literature, drama, and oral history.

Although Nashville has several art collections, none is actually housed in a building designed as a museum (a downtown museum building is in the planning stages, however). The Cheekwood Museum of Art, in the Depression-era Cheek Mansion, displays a permanent collection of American art and a variety of temporary exhibits. Nashville's full-scale replica of the Greek Parthenon, built in the 1920s to replace the temporary version erected for the 1897 centennial celebrations, houses the Cowan Collection of paintings by American artists and other artifacts. Yet another non-traditional venue for art exhibits is Nashville International Airport, where the works of regional artists are showcased in the terminal's atrium, as well as in the airport's halls and lobbies. These include large suspended sculptures and Dale Eldred's "Airport Sun Project," an installation of solar reflecting panels. Art collections are also housed in galleries at Vanderbilt University and Fisk University.

The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum traces the history of country music in a colorful variety of exhibits that include musical instruments and other artifacts, videos, and such unique items as a gold Cadillac that belonged to Elvis Presley. The Grand Ole Opry Museum focuses on performers associated with this famed performance venue. The Lotz House Museum is dedicated to the Civil War (1861–1865), and the Hartzler-Towner Multi-cultural Museum displays artifacts that highlight cultures around the world. Other museums include the Cumberland Science Museum, the Museum of Tobacco Art and History, the Nashville Toy Museum, and the Tennessee State Museum.

19. Tourism

Nashville's music industry generates considerable tourism, which has become one of the city's major sources of income. Tour buses are a common sight throughout Nashville, as visitors attend live performances and radio or television tapings or wander through the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. The white-columned Opryland Hotel, located on 12 hectares (30 acres) of land and renovated in 1996, is located adjacent to the Grand Ole Opry House, and the Opryland USA theme park is nearby. Both the hotel and the Nashville Convention Center also offer convention facilities, including meeting and exhibit space, as does the recently completed Nashville Arena. Another of the city's high-profile hotels is the Loew's Vanderbilt Plaza Hotel next door to Vanderbilt University.

20. Holidays and Festivals

JANUARY
Nashville Boat & Sport Show

FEBRUARY
Antiques & Garden Show of Nashville
Heart of Country Antiques Show

MARCH
Nashville Lawn & Garden Show

APRIL
Americana Sampler Craft Folk & Antique Show
Main Street Festival
Wildflower Fair

MAY
Colonial Fair Day
Hermitage Spring Garden Fair
Historic Edgefield Tour of Homes
Iroquois Steeplechase
Opryland Gospel Jubilee
Tennessee Crafts Fair
Tennessee Renaissance Festival

MAY-AUGUST
Dancin' in the District

JUNE
Balloon Classic
Chet Atkins Musician Day
Fan Fair
International Country Music Fair
Southern Gospel Music Fest

JULY
Independence Day Celebration

AUGUST-SEPTEMBER
Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration

SEPTEMBER
African Street Festival
Belle Meade Fall Fest
Italian Street Fair
TACA Fall Crafts Fair
Tennessee State Fair

OCTOBER
Boo at the Zoo
Grand Ole Opry Birthday Celebration
NAIA Pow Wow
Oktoberfest

NOVEMBER
Longhorn World Championship Rodeo
Sinking Creek Film & Video Festival

NOVEMBER-DECEMBER
A Country Christmas
Nashville's Country Holidays

21. Famous Citizens

President Andrew Jackson (1767–1845).

Vice President Al Gore (b. 1948).

Artist Red Grooms (b. 1937).

Comedienne Minnie Pearl (1912–1996).

Flutist Paula Robeson (b. 1941).

Singer Dinah Shore (1917–94).

Track star Wilma Rudolph (b. 1940).

Rock star Greg Allman (b. 1947).

22. For Further Study

Websites

CitySearch Nashville. [Online] Available http://nashville.citysearch.com (accessed December 8, 1999).

Nashville City Net [Online] Available http://www.city.net/countries/united_states/tennessee/nashville (accessed December 8, 1999).

Nashville.Net. [Online] Available http://www.nashville.net/ (accessed December 8, 1999).

Government Offices

Davidson County
205 Metro Courthouse
Nashville, TN 37201
(615) 862-6770

Mayor's Office
107 Metro Courthouse
Nashville, TN 37201
(615) 862-5000.

Nashville City Hall
107 Metro Courthouse
Nashville, TN 37201
(615) 862–5000

Tourist and Convention Bureaus

Nashville Convention and Visitors Bureau
161 4th Ave. N.
Nashville, TN 37219
(615) 259-4700

Publications

The Nashville Business Journal
222 2nd Ave.
Nashville, TN 37201

The Tennessean
1100 Broadway
Nashville, TN 37203

Books

Ben-Amotz, Noa. Discover Another Nashville: An Essential Guide for Natives & Newcomers. Nashville, TN: Common Ground, 1994.

Doyle, Don Harrison. Nashville Since the 1920s. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1985.

Faragher, Scott. Nashville: Gateway to the South. An Insider's Guide to Music City, U. S. A. Nashville, TN: Cumberland House, 1998.

Goodstein, Anita Shafer. Nashville, 1780–1860: From Frontier to City. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1989.

Kingsbury, Paul. The Country Reader: Twenty-Five Years of the Journal of Country Music. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1996.

Kreyling, Christine M. Classical Nashville: Athens of the South. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1996.

Squires, James D. Secrets of the Hopewell Box: Stolen Elections, Southern Politics, and a City's Coming of Age. 1st ed. New York: Times Books, 1996.

Videorecordings

A Tour of Nashville, Tennessee. [videorecording] City Productions Home Video. Memphis, TN: City Productions, 1994. 1 videocassette (ca. 45 min.).

Nashville Music City U.S.A. [videorecording] Video Postcards, Inc., 1986. 1 videocassette (45 min.).