NASHVILLE, Tennessee — Long before it was known as Music City, Nashville was Fort Nashborough.
The fort was a stockade established in early 1779 in the Cumberland River valley’s French Lick area. It was also known as Fort Bluff, Bluff Station, French Lick Fort and Cumberland River Fort.
Nashville was formally founded on Jan. 1, 1780, when the area was still part of North Carolina. The city was named for American Revolutionary War Continental Army Gen. Francis Nash.
On the banks of the Cumberland, settlers built a square log stockade covering two acres and containing 20 log cabins. The fort provided the settlers with protection from wild animals and the native population.
James Robertson and John Donelson led a party of Overmountain Men to the fort’s eventual location and are remembered as its founders and the “founders of Tennessee.”
In 1794, more than a decade after the start of Nashville, the fort was abandoned. In 1843, Nashville was designated the capital of the newly formed state of Tennessee.
In the 1930s, a small replica of Fort Nashborough stands along First Avenue North in Downtown Nashville, a few hundred feet from the fort’s original site and a short walk from the raucous and touristy Broadway.
The fort was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on July 13, 2011. However, it was removed from the list on Nov. 24, 2015, when the original iteration was demolished.
On July 13, 2017, a newly renovated Fort Nashborough History Center opened following a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The new History Center is supposed to be a “more inclusive” retelling of the past, featuring a plaza dedicated to Native American history.
