History of Nashville Timeline

In 1796, the Southwest Territory was admitted to the union as the state of Tennessee, making Nashville part of the new state.

Image source: Tennessee

In 1806, Nashville was chartered as an incorporated city. By 1800 the city had 345 residents, including 136 enslaved Blacks and 14 free Blacks.

In the War of 1812, General Andrew Jackson, a Nashville lawyer and politician, defeated the Creek Indians at Horseshoe Bend and the British at New Orleans, becoming a western hero. Building on his militia connections, he built a strong political base and in 1828 was elected president.

Image source: Andrew Jackson

More than 30 years after receiving its charter, Nashville was selected as the permanent capital of Tennessee on October 7, 1843.

Image source: Tennessee State Capitol

The Tennessee State Capitol building was constructed over fourteen years from 1845 to 1859. Fifteen enslaved Black men worked on carving the Capitol's limestone cellar from 1845 to 1847 under Nashville stonemason A.G. Payne.

In 1897, Nashville hosted the Tennessee Centennial and International Exposition, a World's Fair celebrating the 100th anniversary of Tennessee's entry into the Union. The city's population rose from 16,988 in 1860 to 80,865 by 1900, with African-Americans increasing from 23 to 38 percent between 1860 and 1870.

Image source: Tennessee Centennial and International Exposition

Tennessee was the last state to join the Confederacy on June 24, 1861, when Governor Isham G. Harris signed the secession act.

Image source: Tennessee in the American Civil War

The General Assembly was still in session at Nashville when Fort Donelson fell on February 16, 1862. Nashville was seized by Federal troops and became a major Union military base for the remainder of the war.

Image source: Battle of Fort Donelson

On December 2, 1864, the Confederate Army of Tennessee arrived south of the city and set up fortifications facing the Union Army. Hood's forces were decisively defeated in the Battle of Nashville, effectively destroying the Confederate army in the West.

Image source: Battle of Nashville

When the Union army left, the Fisk Free Colored School took over the Fort Gillem grounds north of downtown and was renamed Fisk University in 1872. It became a leading institution of African-American higher education.

Image source: Fisk University

In the late 1880s, Nashville's African-American and poor white populations were affected by changes to state laws that made voter registration more difficult, including imposition of a poll tax in 1889.

Image source: Disfranchisement after the Reconstruction era

On March 22, 1916, a fire erupted in East Nashville, destroying more than 500 homes. It became known as the Great Fire of 1916.

Image source: Val Gagné, Ontario

On July 9, 1918, in Nashville, an inbound local train collided with an outbound express, killing 101 people in one of the deadliest rail disasters in U.S. history.

Image source: Great Train Wreck of 1918

Tennessee was the state that put the 19th Amendment, allowing women to vote, over the top, and the ratification struggle convulsed the city of Nashville in August 1920.

Image source: Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

On March 1, 1941, W47NV began operations in Nashville as the first fully licensed commercial FM radio station in the United States.

Image source: WSM-FM (1941–1951)

In 1942, Roy Acuff co-founded the first major Nashville-based country music publishing company, Acuff-Rose Music. Entrepreneurs like Acuff made Nashville the country music capital after World War II.

In 1949, the city administration claimed 96 acres in Hell's Half Acre, a black neighborhood northwest of the state capital that housed the poorest African-Americans in the city.

Image source: Hell's Half Acre (Nashville, Tennessee)

During the winter of 1951, Nashville experienced the most severe blizzard in the city's history. It holds third place for the most snow recorded from a single storm system, behind the blizzard of 1892 and Winter Storm Jonas in 2016.

Image source: List of ice storms

In 1957, public schools began to be desegregated using the 'stair-step' plan proposed by Dan May. People protested integration and, at Hattie Cotton Elementary School, a bomb was detonated.

Image source: Desegregation busing

On February 13, 1960, hundreds of college students involved in the Nashville Student Movement launched a sit-in campaign to desegregate lunch counters throughout the city.

Image source: Nashville sit-ins

The first movement credited to SNCC was the 1961 Nashville Open Theater Movement, directed and strategized by James Bevel, which desegregated the city's theaters.

Image source: Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

Although a similar proposal had failed in 1958, Davidson County voters approved consolidation in a referendum on June 28, 1962. In 1963, Nashville and Davidson County were consolidated under a single charter administered by a mayor and council.

The expansion of the National Hockey League brought the Nashville Predators to Nashville in 1998. The franchise has performed exceptionally well, valued at $270 million in 2016.

On April 16, 1998, an F3 tornado struck the downtown area at around 3:30 p.m., causing serious damage, blowing out hundreds of windows from skyscrapers, raining shattered glass on streets, and closing the business district for nearly four days.

Image source: Tornado outbreak of April 15–16, 1998

Shortly after the NHL expansion in 1998, the Tennessee Oilers moved from Memphis to Nashville in 1999, beginning their inaugural season as the Tennessee Titans.

In 2000, Nashville native Bill Frist rose to national political prominence when he became majority leader of the U.S. Senate.

Image source: Bill Frist

In 2006, commuter rail service from Nashville to Lebanon opened to the public. Further plans to expand the Music City Star (now WeGo Star) were halted during the Great Recession of 2008–09 but remain an objective for the city.

Image source: WeGo Star

From April 30 through May 7, 2010, significant flooding impacted Nashville and its suburbs, causing extensive damage across the region.

Image source: 2010 Tennessee floods

On January 8, 2013, The New York Times declared Nashville an 'It' city in a publication titled 'Nashville's Latest Hit Could Be the City Itself.' The article spurred new growth and construction, leading to Nashville being declared the 5th fastest growing city in America by the end of 2013.

On May 28, 2013, the newly anticipated Music City Center opened its doors in the SoBro District of Downtown Nashville, sparking numerous new construction projects in SoBro and other parts of the city through 2015.

Image source: Music City Center

In November 2014, Bridgestone announced it would keep its North American headquarters in Nashville and invest $200 million to build a new 35-story skyscraper bringing 1,700 jobs to downtown Nashville.

Image source: Bridgestone

On January 26, 2015, Google announced it was bringing its Fiber service to the Nashville area, providing super fast internet using fiber optic cables in the ground.

On April 17, 2015, First Tennessee Park opened in the Germantown district of Nashville, providing a new home for the AAA baseball team the Nashville Sounds.

Image source: First Horizon Park

On January 22, 2016, Winter Storm Jonas brought blizzard conditions to Nashville, producing more than eight inches of snow, the second-most snowfall from a single storm system in city history.

Image source: January 2016 United States blizzard

In 2017, Nashville surpassed Memphis as Tennessee's most populous city, exceeding it by roughly 8,000 people. That year Zillow ranked Nashville the hottest housing market in the U.S., Milken Institute ranked it the 7th best performing city, and the city had been growing by about 82 residents per day since 2016.

In August 2017, British Airways announced the launch of the first nonstop transatlantic flight from Nashville to London's Heathrow Airport, beginning on May 4, 2018.

Image source: British Airways

In May 2018, The New York financial firm AllianceBernstein announced it would relocate its corporate headquarters to downtown Nashville's Fifth and Broadway development, bringing at least 1,000 new corporate jobs.

Image source: AllianceBernstein

On November 12, 2018, Nashville was announced as the East coast operations hub for Amazon's logistics and retail department, bringing at least 5,000 new corporate jobs to the Nashville Yards development — the largest jobs announcement in Tennessee history.

Image source: Amazon (company)

From April 25–27, 2019, Nashville hosted the 2019 NFL draft, drawing massive crowds downtown after being named host in June 2018.

Image source: 2019 NFL draft

In the early hours of March 3, 2020, Nashville was once again struck by a deadly tornado, causing significant damage across the city.

Image source: Tornado outbreak of March 2–3, 2020

On December 25, 2020, a car bomb exploded in downtown Nashville at the city's business district outside the AT&T Building, injuring at least three people.

Image source: 2020 Nashville bombing

On March 27, 2023, a mass shooting occurred at The Covenant School in Nashville's Green Hills neighborhood, killing three adults, three children, and the perpetrator.

Image source: 2023 Nashville school shooting

On December 9, 2023, a violent storm with multiple tornadoes left a line of destruction some hundred miles long through the area around Nashville.

Image source: Tornadoes of 2023