Nashville, Tennessee is a very here-and-now sort of city, offering some of the most vibrant and pulsing arts-and-culture you could imagine all year round.
But that energetic contemporary heartbeat pumps away on the foundation of some pretty remarkable history and heritage, from millenia-old effigy mounds to iconic landmarks of country music.
As a guest of ours here at The Union Station Nashville Yards, you not only have front-row seats to a plenitude of historical sites in and around Music City, USA: You’re also calling one home, given our own Gilded Age pedigree.
Historical & Archaeological Sites to Visit During Your Stay at The Union Station Nashville Yards
The following list of destinations is not even close to being an exhaustive overview of the Nashville area’s archaeological and historical heritage. But these sites do gesture at its amazing breadth—and all make fascinating places to check out while enjoying our Autograph Collection hospitality!
The Belmont Mansion
Built between 1850 and 1860, the Belmont Mansion was the largest house constructed in pre-Civil War Tennessee. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, this antebellum home is open for tours that detail not only the biographies of owners Adelicia and Joseph Acklen, but also the enslaved African-Americans who powered the property.
Mound Bottom State Archaeological Area
A mere half-hour’s drive or so from The Union Station Nashville Yards, the Mound Bottom State Archaeological Area marks the greatest concentration of American Indian earthworks in the Volunteer State. Peppering a great bend of the Harpeth River, more than a dozen mounds dating to the Mississippian Period (~1100-1350 C.E.) distinguish the site, part of Harpeth River State Park and viewable from its Bluff Overlook Trail and other vantages.
Cheekwood Estate & Gardens
One of the Nashville area’s defining historical landmarks, Cheekwood marks the Georgian-style manor and jaw-dropping landscaping installed in 1929 as the home of Leslie and Mabel Cheek and turned into a public art museum and botanical garden in 1960. Welcoming more than 400,000 visitors each year, this property hosts a load of annual events, holiday installations, and other happenings—and all of it’s less than a half-hour away from your guest room or suite here at The Union Station Nashville Yards…
Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage
The National Historic Landmark of The Hermitage served as home base, more or less, for Andrew Jackson, U.S. Army general and the seventh president of the United States. Among the major tourist attractions in Nashville’s backyard, The Hermitage includes the 1819 Greek Revival mansion Jackson called home as well as numerous historical outbuildings. From guided tours to a whole slew of annual events, you’ll have any number of options at your fingertips for exploring this linchpin Greater Nashville historical site as a guest of ours at The Union Station Nashville Yards.
Fort Nashborough Interpretive Center
In 1779, a group of settlers led by James Robertson (the “Father of Middle Tennessee”) and John Donelson established a blufftop fortification along the Cumberland River at a site called French Lick. Called Fort Nashborough, this was the original settlement that ultimately evolved into Nashville. Resistance from local American Indian tribes saw the stockade attacked a number of times, including in April 1781, when the Chickamaugas, a faction of the Cherokee Nation, fought with the Fort Nashboroughians in the so-called Battle of the Bluffs.
The 18th-century stockade settlement has been recreated at the Fort Nashborough Interpretive Center in Downtown Nashville’s Riverfront Park, very near the original French Lick site and an easy stroll away from The Union Station. It’s free to explore on a self-guided tour.
Tennessee State Capitol
Built in 1859, the Tennessee State Capitol is among the oldest working capitols in the country, and one of only a dozen without a dome. Architect William Strickland regarded this Greek Revival masterpiece as his greatest work; he died unexpectedly in 1854 while the building was still under construction, and is buried within its north facade. A National Historic Landmark, the Capitol is also a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, notable, among other things, for being one of the very first buildings in the country to be built with structural iron roof trusses.
Strickland’s isn’t the only burial here: The grounds of the Tennessee State Capitol also contain the tombs of President James Polk, who died in Nashville in 1849, and his wife, Sarah.
You can explore the Tennessee State Capitol—less than a mile from The Union Station Nashville Yards—at your own pace from 9 AM to 4 PM Monday through Friday, or join one of the 45-minute guided tours offered daily.
The Ryman Auditorium
The “Mother Church of Country Music” indeed began its career as a church: the Union Gospel Tabernacle, completed in 1892. The building was the brainchild of Thomas G. Ryman, a riverboat captain who’d been inspired at an 1885 religious revival led by Reverend Sam Jones in downtown Nashville. The Fisk Jubilee Singers—who take the Ryman stage to this day—performed at the Tabernacle in its first year.
The building—which began to be referred to as the Ryman Auditorium after Captain Ryman died in 1904, and eventually was officially renamed so—hosted everyone from Booker T. Washington to Harry Houdini and Charlie Chaplin in its early decades. In 1943, the Grand Ole Opry opened its residency there; the Ryman would be the Opry’s home for some 30 years, welcoming over those decades a staggering who’s-who of country and bluegrass icons, from Bill Monroe and Hank Williams to Loretta Lynn and Johnny Cash (who met his future wife, June Carter, backstage at a Ryman performance).
After the Grand Ole Opry relocated to its new theater (the Grand Ole Opry House), the Ryman Auditorium entered a period of decline, and even came under threat of demolition before being classified as a National Historic Landmark. New ownership saw the building refurbished in the early 1990s, and it reopened as a concert venue in 1994. The biggest names in music—and not just country music, mind you—take the hallowed stage, and the Grand Ole Opry returns for regular Opry at the Ryman performances.
Your guest room or suite at The Union Station Nashville Yards puts you mere blocks away from the Mother Church of Country Music, one of America’s truly legendary music venues.
The Union Station: Another Noteworthy Nashville Historical Landmark
Our stunning building opened in 1900 as a train terminal along the famous Louisville & Nashville (L&N) Railroad, whose history ran from the mid-1800s to the 1980s. The Union Station’s heavy-stone Richardsonian-Romanesque design makes it one of the defining skyline fixtures along Nashville’s foundational Broadway thoroughfare. Our grand lobby, with its 65-foot barrel-vaulted ceiling and century-old stained glass, ranks among Music City’s architectural wonders.
The Union Station terminal closed in 1979 and was reimagined as a luxury boutique hotel beginning in 1986. Today, we’re proud not only to supply our guests with the pinnacle of modern Nashville hospitality, but also, as we do so, to honor the historical and architectural significance of our building, on the National Register of Historic Places and part of the National Trust for HIstoric Preservation’s Historical Hotels of America.
Come stay here in this awe-inspiring Nashville landmark, host to bespoke accommodations, gourmet on-site dining, live entertainment, and other amenities, and use us, too, as a springboard for exploring other historical sites in and around Music City, USA!