56 Lindsley Avenue Our new home at 56 Lindsley Avenue is located in one of Nashville’s oldest neighborhoods. The first settlement of Nashville was built just a few blocks to the north on the west bank of the Cumberland River on Christmas Day 1779. James Robertson and John Donelson brought sixty families from east coast colonies to build a new home in an area known as French Lick. The new residents quickly built a stockade for protection and named it Fort Nashborough in honor of General Francis Nash, a hero of the American Revolution. It was later renamed Nashville by the North Carolina legislature in 1784.
The area south of the Fort, near what is now Lindsley Avenue, was called “Black Bottom” in reference to the richness of the soil. Crops grew so well along the river’s edge that it was necessary to post guards to protect the harvest. Stories of “nine foot tall corn stalks grown in Nashville" traveled east to the Carolinas. The result was a surge in the population of the new settlement. The Black Bottom area was incorporated into Nashville around 1850 and served as the Farmer’s Market. The market, located at the corner of Lea Street and College Street (Third Ave. So.) and between College Street and Market Street (Second Ave.) was open for many years.
The area is also known for it academic history. The land for Nashville’s first elementary school was donated by M. H. Howard (Howard School) on College Hill, later named Rutledge Hill. The University of Nashville and Montgomery Bell Academy were also established between Third and Second Avenue, Broad Street and what was to become Lindsley Avenue. This area became the center of Nashville’s most respected universities, medical schools, hospitals and clinics. It was also home to most of its doctors, lawyers and educators.
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| University of Nashville |
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| Howard School |
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Lindsley Avenue was named after the Reverend Phillip Lindsley who arrived in 1824 from Virginia to head the University of Nashville. This new college was formed from the merging of Cumberland College and Davidson Academy. Under Lindsley’s tenure the University of Nashville grew along with the area’s academic reputation. Nashville became known as the "Athens of the West". (Later changed to the "Athens of the South.")
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| Phillip Lindsley, D.D. |
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In the summer of 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt came to Nashville and spoke to a large crowd at the corner of Second Ave. and Lindsley.
It was on this trip that he was credited with saying that
Maxwell House coffee was “Good to the Last Drop!”
In reality, the President said the following
after tasting the coffee at the Maxwell House Hotel:
"This is the kind of stuff I like, by George, when I hunt bears."
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| President Roosevelt at Second Ave. and Lindsley Ave, 1907 |
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Over the next one hundred years the Lindsley area grew into a residential and commercial neighborhood. Nashville’s first fire station was located just a short walk north on Hermitage Avenue as was Nashville’s General Hospital. Large and elegant houses were built in the area along with apartment buildings to house the University students.
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| Apartment Building at Second Ave. and Lindsley, 1947 |
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The house where ROCK Creative Images is now located was built in 1896. Through most of the following decades it was the home of the Patrick Joseph Curran Sr. family. Patrick Curran was a member of the Nashville Fire Department and served at the fire station nearby on Hermitage Ave.
Our home is constructed of stone and brick with twelve foot ceilings and hardwood floors. A testament to the loving care of its original owners, it stands today virtually unchanged from the original construction over a hundred years ago.
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| 56 Lindsley, 1956 |
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| 56 Lindsley, 2009 |
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