A timeline of interesting things
that happen in Nashville.
701D Hogan Road, I-65 Southbound
Bill Dorris died and left $5 million to his border collie. He left the statue to the Battle of Nashville Trust. They called it ugly and took it down.
Read →166 Second Avenue North
At 6:30 on Christmas morning, an RV parked on 2nd Avenue exploded. Before it did, it played a recorded warning telling everyone to evacuate, then Petula Clark's 'Downtown.' Six officers ran toward it.
Read →Ryman Auditorium
Thirteen years after he threw a heckler out of the Ryman for requesting it, Ryan Adams came back to the same stage and played Bryan Adams' 'Summer of '69.' Straight. No irony. The only apology that could work.
Read →Ryman Auditorium
A solo acoustic show at the Mother Church. A drunk heckler who wouldn't stop yelling 'Summer of '69.' Ryan Adams stopped the show, turned on the house lights, handed the guy $40, and had him thrown out.
Read →701D Hogan Road, I-65 Southbound
A 25-foot polyurethane statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest, sculpted with a butcher knife by an amateur artist who represented James Earl Ray, was unveiled on private land alongside Interstate 65. It looked like a McDonald's playground character riding a carousel horse.
Read →Brentwood Hall, Edmondson Pike
Twenty-seven years after his financial empire collapsed and nearly destroyed Tennessee's economy, Rogers Caldwell signed over his mansion to the state. It's now the Ellington Agricultural Center.
Read →Eighth Avenue South Reservoir
At 12:10 a.m., the southeast wall of the Eighth Avenue Reservoir gave way. Twenty-five million gallons of water poured down the hillside toward the State Fairgrounds. Nobody died.
Read →Murfreesboro Road
After a cholera epidemic orphaned hundreds of Nashville children, a judge spent twelve years building support for a school to take them in. A railroad tycoon named it after his dead son.
Read →Nashville
The cholera appeared in the city prison on May 6. By the end of summer, one in every twenty-five Nashvillians was dead. The epidemic orphaned hundreds of children and changed the city forever.
Read →