It will come as no surprise that most things in America are big, but we hadn’t expected quite how large our first stop in Nashville was going to be. When our cab from Nashville airport dropped us off at the initial hotel of our Southern States USA group tour we couldn’t quite believe our eyes. We soon found out this is the largest hotel in the country without a casino – the latter point was quite a relief to me as previous experiences saw us having to take an extended walk through vast smoke-filled gaming halls before reaching the reception and hotel lifts… but I digress.
Our hotel, The Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Centre, had a whopping 3,000 rooms. Rooms, such as ours, had two large single beds. Well I say single – each was the size of a standard double bed in the UK. What is more, each bed had five pillows – so on average 10 per room. Multiply that by 3,000 rooms and at 30,000 pillows it entails a whole lot of ironing.
Just one of the many hotel lakes
Even the guitars are huge
The hotel had a dozen restaurants, a shopping mall, large swimming pools with rapids, four-lane racer slides, indoor lakes, and a whole lot more.
As we walked around on the first day we passed a recording studio within its mall. This turned out to be the home of WSM Radio which broadcasts country music 24 hours a day. And we soon realised we had landed in the home of country music when we saw, thorough the studio windows, a real country singer with her cowboy hat, denim shorts and knee-high white cowboy boots. This was singer-songwriter Annie Bosko (pictured) who has written songs for Willie Nelson and performed alongside Adele, amongst others. If country music is your thing you can catch the 24 hour broadcasting on-line at WSM Radio.
What we also hadn’t expected was that our four-day Nashville stay coincided with the annual CMA (Country Music Association) Fest, considered to be the number one country music festival in the US. Last year it grossed in excess of $65 million according to some sources, and this time had 11 stages with music playing from morning to night.
We got a feel of this when we jumped into a cab to downtown Nashville (unfortunately a 30 minute drive away) where we were to find the main strip, Broadway, closed to traffic so fans could enjoy the many bars and stages. As we worked our way along Broadway the sound level was LOUD.
Early fans head for day one of the festival
Not knowing the Fest was on we had other things planned and to get our bearings we boarded the hop on, hop off, trolley bus.
This took us past many small houses that had once been used as recording studios. Dolly Parton, Aretha Franklin, Eric Clapton, and the Eagles are all said to have recorded in these small venues. We also passed an hotel where Elvis once stayed and which has since added a guitar-shaped swimming pool in remembrance (or could it be marketing?).
A site we would not have seen during our limited time in Nashville had we not been on the trolley bus was the Marathon Motor Museum. Marathon had its origins in the Southern Engine and Boiler Works founded in Jackson, Tennessee in 1884. Its name gave a clue to its production – that of gasoline engines and industrial boilers. Some of those gasoline engines were being purchased as components for companies assembling cars. It was rare that companies manufactured entire vehicles to their own design and using components they had produced on site. But things were to change when a young engineer, one William Henry Collier, joined the Southern Engine and Boiler Works in the early 1900s. Collier wanted to build a car he had designed and to do so at the company in which he was working.
The agreement to do so was to reap rewards with the launch of their first vehicle with gasoline engine in 1907. Investors flocked to be involved. Several models were developed based on Collier’s design. The vehicles were to be sold under the name ‘Southerns’, but this clashed with another company using the same name. Instead ‘Marathon’ was chosen. Such was the success that the company needed to expand production and took over a cotton mill in Nashville. Several models followed and by 1912 200 cars were produced a month.
Sadly, that success did not last. While the Marathon car had a reputation for quality and reliability, demand outstripped supply and the company went into receivership.
Today this nationally-registered historic industrial premises houses a museum focused on the motor company, plus shops, cafes, distillery and work spaces. The building still proudly emblazons the words ‘Marathon Motor Works 1907’. An estimated nine Marathon cars still exist worldwide although not all have been traced.
From here, having hopped off at the motor museum we hopped back on the trolley bus, passing (rather bizarrely) the Parthenon. It was sited in Centennial Park in the west of Nashville and is a replica of the ancient building in Athens. It is said to be accurate to within an inch of the original – it is not a copy of Athens’ actual ruins of today!
Why was it there? It was originally intended to be temporary and built to celebrate Tennessee’s 100 years as a state, as part of the Tennessee Centennial Exposition in 1897. The Parthenon was chosen to reflect Nashville’s labelling as ‘The Athens of the South’ named so for its educational opportunities, due in part to the establishment of schools such as Vanderbilt, and Fisk. We were to see on our travels that Vanderbilt now has vast estates and elaborate buildings in Nashville. Some of its students are able to spend a year overseas on work experience. We know that as one of the companies John had worked for had such an arrangement.
But back to the Parthenon. The original building was not built to last and in 1920 the decision came to pull it down, or rebuild. The community wanted the latter. Today, the building has been purposed to educate the public about the original Greek Parthenon, 5th century BC Athens and its people, and life in Nashville since 1897. Fine aims indeed. We looked forward to learning more… the building was closed.
We headed back. Nashville, so far, looked a fun town. Not only was the CMA Fest in full swing, but so were many hen parties for which I share some photos. We looked forward to what else Nashville had to offer in the days ahead.
Copyright: Words and photos, Sue Barnard 2024