The moment a thirty day period, reporter and resident historian J.R. Lind will select an space in the metropolis to study whilst accompanied by a photographer. With his column Walk a Mile, he’ll stroll a a person-mile extend of that location, exploring the neighborhood’s history and character, its developments, its existing homes and businesses, and what helps make it a unique component of Nashville. If you have a recommendation for a future Stroll a Mile, e-mail [email protected].
The Route: North from the intersection of Extensive Hollow Pike and Main Avenue/Dickerson Pike, east on Cedar, then left on Church, left on Depot and remaining on Main to the beginning.
Cranes:
Abandoned scooters:
Horse-collar mirrors: 1
Kasper Mansker desired anything a very little more adventurous and a small far more spacious.
Mansker — born on a ship someplace in the mid-Atlantic in 1750 as his parents immigrated to Philadelphia from the Saarland — experienced presently had a great deal of journey in his initially 30 years, so he could be forgiven if he just preferred to take it uncomplicated.
Right after all, he’d joined just one of the 1st prolonged-hunter events when he was 20, crossing the Appalachians and in search of the large video game in what would come to be Kentucky and Center Tennessee, even on down to Mississippi. On his 2nd vacation a 12 months later, he discovered a nice minimal spot close to a creek with two salt licks close by. It was a great place for a hunter and fur trader, as the then-considerable bison and deer had been recurrent guests.
Springs and salt licks had been what in the long run brought James Robertson, John Donelson and the relaxation to the location to discovered Nashville. Fort Nashborough was positioned for obtain to McNairy’s Spring in what is now Bicentennial Shopping mall, to the salt licks at what is now Sulphur Dell and to the Cumberland River.
Mansker presently realized all this thanks to his recurrent adventuring. It was only a several weeks soon after James Robertson and his fellow pioneers drove their cattle throughout the frozen Cumberland on Xmas Working day 1779 that Mansker and his handful of co-adventurists arrived. (They beat the river-borne and ultimately much more very well-remembered Donelson Get together by about two months.)
Mansker hung all around what would grow to be Fort Nashborough, but he could under no circumstances pretty shake his need to go back to that primary location northeast, alongside the creek with the two salt licks. Late in 1780, he moved himself 12 miles to the banking institutions of the creek that now bears his identify (and serves as part of the Sumner-Davidson county line) and established up shop at Mansker’s Station. (Or Mansco’s or Gaspar’s he experienced the unwell fortune of placing up shop in the time just before standardized spelling.) Mansker was a crucial cog in the early Cumberland settlement, as Mansker’s Station served as a safe haven and waystation on the Avery Trace, just one of the streets connecting Nashborough to Knoxville and points east.
This is just a gloss of a amazing, just about tall-tale lifetime. Mansker was renowned for his large ft, his rifle named “Nancy” and for preventing at the Struggle of New Orleans when he was in his 60s. Andrew Jackson achieved his beloved Rachel (who was nevertheless married to her 1st partner at the time) at Mansker’s Station.
In any case, Mansker’s wanderlust and pre-Chicks wish for extensive open spaces is how Goodlettsville came to be.
These times, it’s one of Davidson County’s 5 satellite cities (6, if you rely the teeny slivers of a handful of Ridgetop backyards that cross the Robertson County line) and the only one that has a part in two counties (if you really don’t count Ridgetop). That oddity is also a Mansker legacy — he in no way could determine which aspect of his creek he wished to live on, major to a long time-very long annexation battles involving Goodlettsville and Hendersonville that weren’t settled until eventually the 1990s.
On a shockingly temperate July early morning, a driver at the corner of Primary Avenue and Very long Hollow Pike has misplaced his wheel. Not his tire. His wheel. It is slowing northbound site visitors — which, blessedly, there isn’t much of, supplied that commuters are heading south.
Cedar Avenue, just north of the Walgreens catty-corner to our unfortunate driver, parallels Extensive Hollow Pike. Although the coming of Interstate 65 introduced all the attendant cookie-cutter organizations to Long Hollow, Cedar continues to be very charming. Sidewalk-less, but charming.
Hundred-year-previous brick and clapboard properties sit on marginally elevated yards, separated from the road by stone walls damming back the earth and aged-development shade trees casting short summer time shadows.
Some of the residences have been transformed into specialist-solutions places of work (attorneys, home finance loan brokers, accountants, insurance coverage brokers and so on), but some continue to be household. A substantial Locations Lender constructing interrupts the tiny-scale commerce of the avenue, but which is explainable. The Regions was when the Lender of Goodlettsville, and prior to Walgreens reduce it off, it sat at a main triple intersection concerning Long Hollow, Dickerson Pike (which Goodlettsvillians call Most important Street) and Two Mile Pike. Walgreens’ arrival pressured the rerouting of a handful of hundred ft of Two Mile Pike (which is now the Areas driveway, much more or much less) and still left the bank constructing to look as if it only fronts a neighborhood. Coincidentally, all this street relocating didn’t technically adjust the identify of the roadways, so the to start with 150 toes or so of Cedar Avenue are however Two Mile Pike, which then disappears for a although and arrives back to daily life by the bank.
Church Road climbs steeply north from Cedar, sure by hedges evoking The Top secret Garden, the crest of the hill topped by Connell United Methodist. It was created in this article in 1905, a durable brick setting up with extraordinary stained glass and a wonderful check out. The church, like most almost everything else all-around listed here, can also trace its roots to Mansker. The congregation 1st achieved at Walton’s Campground on the Mansker home in the early 19th century.
There’s a stark changeover as Church Avenue goes again downhill. But for one particular almost-Spanish Revival property, it is very long-functioning mild industrial home: sheet-metal works, business truck mend and the like. As well as a single big vacant large amount that is now begging to be a baseball field.
Even in the course of rush hour, with the freeway to the west and the interstate to the east, the targeted traffic noise is but a mere rumble, unable to overwhelm the songbirds earning their title in the considerable trees.
A remaining on Depot Street marks the return of houses, scaled-down but of similar vintage to those on Church. At the corner of Depot and Principal is Goodlettsville Barber Shop. In gold lettering, the store claims “Vacuum Clippers” and, even additional anachronistically, “Flat Tops.” It’s truly worth a jaunt north a little bit on Main to see the neon signs at 31-W Liquor Retail outlet, constructed in 1968.
Much more fashionable (study: unexciting) industrial architecture dominates the couple of blocks south of Depot: automobile elements merchants, an AT&T trade, a Dollar Standard (the corporate headquarters is close by). There’s also a mailbox for sale, for some rationale.
Right after all that mundanity (and the mailbox), an previous-city experience returns. Goodlettsville, to the diploma that it is recognised for anything at all over and above thriving Minor Leaguers, is recognized for antiques. Both sides of Main below function antique outlets.
A variety of products readily available outside the Antique Corner Mall at Main and Moncrief:
- Hub caps (5)
- Andirons
- Bowflex
- Double sink
- Pedestal sink
- 24 empty bottles, Wiedeman’s beer, and box
- A person of these horse-collar mirrors out there at every respectable antique shop
The strip of outdated retailers amongst Moncrief and West Cedar were being, at many periods, owned by the Myerses (of B.F. Myers) and the Outdated Hickory Coal and Ice Organization. Lick Road, its identify echoing Goodlettsville’s raison d’etre, operates at the rear of. It is, on some modern day-working day home information, composed as “Link Avenue,” but never rely on the bowdlerizers. It is “Lick” on the oldest files.
The original limestone (domestically quarried) Financial institution of Goodlettsville is opposite at the East Cedar (technically, of class, Two Mile Pike) intersection and is now Artists on Primary Painting Modern society, which seems delightfully Victorian.
Amongst the Mansker Era and the Antiques/Small League Era, Goodlettsville was recognised for its sheep. No, seriously. In reality, a plaque at a gazebo in entrance of Goodlettsville City Hall memorializes the Goodlettsville Lamb Club (later the Lamb & Wool Club and even later on, as mutton fell out of style, the Wool Club), structured in 1877. At the time, it was the follow of customers to guess the pounds of spring lambs and pay out the farmers accordingly. Stunning no 1, it was also the observe for the prospective buyers to intentionally undervalue the pounds, so 19 Goodlettsville farmers obtained together and agreed to only market their lambs as a result of the club. It was America’s 1st farming cooperative.
Back at the Extended Hollow intersection, the person with the lost wheel has, seemingly, moved on. Like Kasper Mansker, he had locations to go.
