Natchez Trace Parkway
Before the arrival of Europeans, native Americans established a network of trails or “traces” through the wilderness. Early hunters, settlers, and soldiers used these traces, the most famous of which was the Natchez Trace connecting Nashville and Natchez, Mississippi. During the late 1700s the Natchez Trace became an important thoroughfare for French and Spanish traders and missionaries.
By the early 19th century American boatmen were returning over the trace from New Orleans and

Natchez.
Circuit-riding ministers, Federal troops, and pioneer wagons increased the traffic on this busy artery. In 1809 Meriwether Lewis of the famed Lewis and Clark Expedition met a mysterious death at Grinder’s Stand on the trace. His grave is marked by a monument, one of many historic sites on the trace. In 1938, Congress created the Natchez Trace Parkway, which was opened for its entire 442 miles in 1996. The Parkway provides a landscaped recreational roadway that winds its way past old iron industry villages, railroad towns, tollhouses, and the German-Swiss immigrant community of Hohenwald. One can see at various places the wagon-rutted early trace, especially the portions cleared by U.S. soldiers between 1801 and 1803.

 
James K. Polk Ancestral Home

This house was built by Samuel Polk in 1816, when his son James K. Polk was twenty-one years old. It was here that James K. Polk began his legal and political career, living in this house until he was inaugurated 11th president of the United States in 1845. He was the first “dark horse” candidate for president and during his term the territory of the United States was extended from the Atlantic to the
Pacific Oceans. Having served in the state legislature, in Congress, as governor of Tennessee, and as president of the United States, Polk died in 1849, a victim of cholera. The house is built in the Federal style and is furnished with relics from the Polk White House. Nearby is the home of Polk’s sisters. Tours of the homes include exhibits of Mrs. Polk’s ball gown and jewels, Polk’s inaugural Bible, Mexican War memorabilia, and the family gardens.

 
Jubilee Hall of Fisk University

Fisk University was founded by the American Missionary Association and the Western Freedman’s Aid Commission in 1866 as Fisk School, a free school for blacks in Nashville. Jubilee Hall, an example of the High Victorian Gothic style,
was completed in 1875, the first permanent building erected for the higher education of African Americans in the United States. Money for the building was raised by the Fisk Jubilee Singers, whose worldwide singing tours saved the school

from financial collapse in the 1870s. During that time Nashville became a center for black religious music. A portrait of the original Jubilee Singers, painted by Queen Victoria’s court painter, hangs in Jubilee Hall, now a University residence hall.

 
Parthenon
Nashville’s Parthenon is the only full-sized reproduction of the original Parthenon, a temple built by the Greeks in Athens during the 5th century B.C. It houses the tallest indoor sculpture in the western world, a statue of Athena, ancient goddess of wisdom and learning, the deity for whom the original Parthenon was erected. Originally built for the Tennessee Centennial Exposition in 1897,the building became unsafe and was rebuilt in 1929. It is

an exact replica of theGreek temple, its architecture including not a single straight line; no two columns are the same size, nor are they placed the same distance apart. No two steps are the same size and the floor is not square or level. A proud symbol of Tennessee’s Capitol city, the “Athens of the South,” the Parthenon houses the city’s permanent art collection, plaster casts of the Elgin Marbles, a gift shop, and visitors center.

 
Belle Meade Plantation
Known as “Queen of Tennessee Plantations,” the Harding family’s Belle Meade Plantation, once over 5,300 acres, was world-renowned as a thoroughbred stud farm in the nineteenth century. It was the home of Iroquois, until 1954 the only American-bred winner of the English Derby, which he won in 1881. John Harding bought Dunham’s Station and the tract of land around it in 1807 and built a brick house on the site. William Giles Harding, John's

son, extensively remodeled and enlarged the house after a fire in 1853. Confederate General James R. Chalmers had temporary headquarters here while some of the fighting of the Battle of Nashville raged on the front lawn. The site includes the original Dunham Station log cabin, the mansion restored to the 1850s, stables and carriage house, and other outbuildings. Costumed interpreters give guided tours of the Greek Revival house, the grounds, and outbuildings.