When people think about visiting presidential places, it’s easy to get caught up in visiting Washington, D.C. However, there are a couple of presidential sights in Nashville people can visit. Andrew Jackson and The Hermitage Andrew Jackson, who served as the seventh president from 1829 to 1837, is the most famous presidential resident of Nashville. He moved to Nashville in 1788 following his appointment as a prosecutor in the Western District of North Carolina. Tennessee did not become a state until 1796, and was a part of North Carolina up until that time. Jackson eventually married Rachel Donelson in 1794, and purchased the plantation that would become known as The…
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A pint at Mill Creek Brewing in Nolensville, Tenn.
As craft beer has grown in the Southeast, Nashville has witnessed exponential growth of microbreweries across the city. The growth has spread so far that breweries are sprouting up in the suburbs like Mill Creek Brewing Company, which is located approximately 20 miles south of downtown Nashville. Located on the banks of Mill Creek (hence the brewery’s name), founder and former guitar teacher Chris Going wanted to open a brewery that focused on approachable beers for the average beer drinker. Driving up to the brewery also evokes an approachable feeling with its attractive rusted sign. Even the entrance to the brewery appears quite approachable with glass doors that allow visitors…
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My night with the Tennessee Smokies – May 18, 2016
There are some advantages and disadvantages to having attended baseball games over the past 30 years. The biggest disadvantage for me is that while I’ve visited many over the years, I have not always written about my visits to ballparks. So my ballpark count is significantly higher than the number of stadiums I’ve written about visiting. The biggest advantage is that I get to re-visit stadiums and share a new experience with the people who read my blog. So after first watching the Tennessee Smokies play a home game in 2002 and 2005, I am finally writing about the stadium after attending a game in May 2016. Like those other…
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Previewing my trip through the Carolinas
Since this past December, my girlfriend and I have been planning a trip to North and South Carolina once the school year was over. She grew up in Texas and Oklahoma, so she has not visited many of the states in the Southeast. She loves to travel, and thankfully appreciates and supports my desire to visit baseball stadiums – Major League and Minor League. So when I thought about places we could visit in the spring after we both wrapped up the spring semesters, I had two suggestions: the Carolinas or the Mississippi Gulf Coast and New Orleans. As Katie has visited Louisiana before, and made a brief stop in…
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My night with the Nashville Sounds – Aug. 6, 2015
For the second year in a row I was in Nashville for a baseball game, but this season the Sounds were playing in a brand new ballpark instead of 36-year-old Herschel Greer Stadium (read about last season’s visit here). Although I was visiting a brand new stadium in First Tennessee Park, my visit was quite different because I attended the game with my girlfriend and two of her friends. Another wrinkle to my visit was that the previous day’s game had been suspended due to rain in the bottom of the first inning, so instead of a single game starting at 7 p.m. the Sounds hosted the completion of the…
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My night with the Chattanooga Lookouts – Aug. 1, 2014
Like a lot of stadiums around the Southeast, AT&T Field is one that I visited many years before I started blogging about my stadium visits. I first visited what was called BellSouth Park in 2002, but my history of visiting stadiums in Chattanooga dates to 1993 when I saw the Lookouts play at Engel Stadium. Chattanooga is about 90 minutes from where I grew up in metro Atlanta, which is why one of my first visits to a Minor League Baseball stadium was a Lookouts game. I made this trip because I wanted to write about a nearby stadium, and I’m slowly, but surely working to attending a game at all the…
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Andrew Johnson Burial Place in Greeneville, Tenn.
After his departure from the presidency, Andrew Johnson returned to Greeneville, Tenn., where he lived before becoming involved in state and later national politics. He had arranged to purchase a farm outside of town, but found life boring and sought political office on multiple occasions. Johnson was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1875, but died on July 31 after suffering a series of strokes. Johnson was buried on a plot of land he purchased in 1852 that overlooked town because he enjoyed the view from the place known as “Signal Hill.” Following the construction of a large monument by his grave in 1878, locals began referring to the hill…
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My night with the Nashville Sounds – June 10, 2014
The first baseball game I attended at Herschel Greer Stadium was in March 2002, when the Georgia State Panthers visited the Belmont Bruins in a three-game Atlantic Sun Conference series. The first minor league game I attended was in July 2006 between the Round Rock Express and the Sounds, when I was attending the CoSIDA Convention in Nashville. Both events were long before I started blogging about my visits to MLB and MiLB stadiums, so when the Nashville Sounds announced that 2014 would be the last season at Greer Stadium I wanted to be sure to visit for “the last cheer at Greer.” Unlike MiLB.com’s Ben Hill, nobody had my…
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James K. Polk Burial Place in Nashville, Tenn.
James K. Polk was originally buried in Nashville City Cemetery because it is believed that he died from cholera, and health codes requiring those who died from infectious disease to be buried on the periphery of town. Less than a year later, Polk was moved to a tomb at the house he and his wife Sarah had bought as a retirement property known as Polk Place. Following Sarah’s death in 1891, she was buried next to him on the property. In 1893, the couple was relocated to the Tennessee State Capitol. Their tomb is on the northeast corner of the grounds.
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Andrew Jackson Burial Place in Nashville, Tenn.
Andrew Jackson purchased over 400 acres east of Nashville in 1804. He and his wife Rachel lived on the property in a log cabin until 1821 when a Federal-style mansion was built on the property. Following a chimney fire that severely damaged the structure in 1834, Jackson ordered the construction of a new Greek Revival building on the original mansion’s foundation. The Greek Revival structure was completed in 1836, and was home to the Jacksons until both of their deaths. Following two election cycles of vicious personal attacks, Rachel died on Dec. 22, 1828. She was buried in a small family cemetery at The Hermitage. Following his departure from the…