Fort Negley Park
At 57 acres, this park is a beautiful historic site. It was originally constructed in 1862 as a Union fortress, with 62K cubic feet of stone in a large star shape on top of St. Cloud Hill. With a beautiful wide view overlooking the entire city, the fortress was a formidable site in the city, and the largest inland stone fort built in the civil war.. It was abandoned after the war, and went into ill repair; since it was a symbol of the North, the city of Nashville wasn't very interested in preserving it. Due to changing times, the city of Nashville purchased the land in 1928. The 1930s saw the restoration of Fort Negley at the cost of $84,000. While the restoration was completed, WW2 dried up the national budget and they were unable to open it to the public. In the early 2000s, the city decided to make Fort Negley a priority, and it was reopened to the public December 10th, 2004. $1million was set aside in city money to build the visitor's center.
One corner of the land houses the Adventure Science Center (which will always be the Cumberland Science Museum), and another corner of the land housed the Greer Stadium, which fell out of use after the Nashville Sounds got a new home at the First Tennessee Baseball Park. A plan was in place to demolish Greer Stadium and envelope it into Fort Negley Park, but 100+year old remains of African Americans were found, and that halted those plans. There will be a new redevelopment plan, but it's currently still being hashed out.
In the meantime, the park that exists is beautiful. It feels like a step into history. There's a little over a mile of paved walkways, spotted with placards describing the history of the site. The views alone are stunning. There is a museum and visitor's center, but it was closed when we arrived. Exploring the park, we walked a little over a mile, and spent about an hour there.
If you want to support Fort Negley, I strongly recommend checking out Friends of Fort Negley, at fortnegleypark.org , where you can see events, volunteer, and donate money. I'd also suggest listening to Nashville Public Radio's broadcast on the history of Fort Negley at https://wpln.org/post/the-complicated-history-of-nashvilles-fort-negley/ .
Name: Fort Negley
Address: 1100 Fort Negley Blvd, Nashville, TN 37203
History: 5 out of 5
Walkability: 5 out of 5
Kid Like-ability- 2 out of 5
Date Night-ability- 2 out of 5
Charm: 4 out of 5
