Please save the date for Tuesday, May 12th at 4:30pm for the 50th annual Preservation Awards, a program that honors Davidson County's best historic preservation projects.

Since 1973, over 400 awards have gone to a broad range of historic structures – dwellings, churches, commercial and industrial buildings, schools, even to bridges and new developments. Nominated by the public, they are honored for their sensitivity to the original architecture and the surrounding environment, creativity in adaptation for contemporary use, architectural merit and/or historic interest, long-term maintenance, adherence to the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation, and pioneering spirit. The public awards ceremony coincides with National Preservation Month, which is celebrated every year in May.

More details on the ceremony location will be released soon. Please also plan to join us for the reception after the main event. Both are free to attend, so we hope to see you there!

The Metro Historical Commission (MHC) is pleased to announce that Caroline Eller has been named the Executive Director for the MHC, the fourth person to serve in this role since the department’s founding in 1966.

Nashville native Caroline Eller joined the MHC staff as a Historic Preservationist in 2017. She previously worked as a Historic Preservation and Housing Planner for the East Tennessee Development District, providing historic preservation and housing services to local governments across a 16-county region. Ms. Eller also served as a co-coordinator of the National Register of Historic Places program for the Tennessee Historical Commission. Her previous work with the MHC includes extensive grant administration, management of the Davidson County Cemetery Survey, coordination of the annual Nashville Conference on African American History & Culture, and project lead for Nashville’s first economic impact study on historic preservation. As the former Easements Coordinator for Historic Nashville, Inc., she managed the preservation easements program for nearly 30 historic properties.

Ms. Eller holds a Bachelor of Arts in Historic Preservation and Community Planning from the College of Charleston in South Carolina and a Master of Fine Arts in Historic Preservation from Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia. Her volunteer experience includes internships with Historic Charlotte, Inc. (North Carolina) and Historic Savannah Foundation, and she served as an ex officio board member of the East Tennessee Preservation Alliance based out of Knoxville, Tennessee. She has served as an advisory group member for the National Alliance of Preservation Commissions since 2025.  

Check out the newly-released Nashville Sites Centennial Park Tour, which explores the hidden history of this popular urban green space. Sponsored by the Centennial Park Conservancy, the tour highlights not only the park's rich history but also how it serves our community today.

On April 8 at 6:30 pm, MHC Don Cusic will deliver the third and final talk in this year's lecture series on Nashville Music History, held at historic RCA Studio B. The program will focus on the life and legacy of Minnie Pearl, the subject of Dr. Cusic's recently released book ""Howdy! The Minnie Pearl Story," written with Dr. Mary Ellen Pethel. Tickets are $10, supporting Nashville Historical Foundation, and are available here.

The Nashville Historical Foundation, MHC's nonprofit arm, was recently awarded a Tennessee Wars Commission grant to build an archaeology website to showcase archaeology and archaeological collections in Nashville. The website will also have a survey function where the public can record artifacts that they have found including location details and pictures. The grant has funding for up to two students to help design and print a public booklet highlighting 20 important artifacts in Davidson County.

The Nashville City Cemetery Association (NCCA) is planning to install a memorial bench for the enslaved people buried in the cemetery. The memorial will be made and installed by Shultz Monument Company. Fundraising has been successful so far and the work is expected to take place over the next few months. The bench will be located in the back of the cemetery. 

The NCCA was awarded a Tennessee 250 grant to create three Nashville Sites tours for the cemetery. These tours will be created by the MHC with some assistance from the NCCA, with themes being early Nashville, general history, and Black history.

The NCCA's Second Saturday Tour will be led by board member and self-described “Nashville enthusiast” Ella Marie Sullivan. Having worked at the Tennessee State Museum and the Country Music Hall of Fame, Ella Marie has an informed appreciation of the city's past and present. Her tour will weave together the narratives of those buried in the cemetery to tell a broader story of Nashville, illustrating the moments and movements that have shaped the city and its community from its earliest days as a fledgling fort to its modern times as Music City, USA.

The Story of Nashville from Six Feet Under: A Second Saturday Tour is Saturday, Apr 11, from 10:00-11:00 am. Tickets on sale at Eventbrite.

The 26th annual Memorial Day Dash will be a virtual event held on Monday, May 25. Proceeds from the Dash benefit the NCCA's educational and preservation efforts. You can still visit us at the cemetery between 9:00 and 11:30 am for refreshments and a Memorial Day ceremony.

On March 5, our city lost a Nashville Student Movement luminary, Bernard Lafayette Jr. (1940-2026). Lafayette was one of several local students, including fellow American Baptist College alumnus, the late Rep. John Lewis, who attended James Lawson's nonviolent workshops in Nashville during the late 1950s. Lafayette worked with Lewis to develop the student code of conduct for their demonstrations, ensuring they were effective and followed nonviolent Gandhian principles. He also participated in the April 19, 1960 Silent March, following the bombing of Z. Alexander Looby's home, where thousands of participants marched along a route stretching from Tennessee State University to the Davidson County Courthouse. In 1961, Lafayette participated in the Nashville stand-ins, a three-month initiative to protest against segregated downtown movie theaters. That May, he and several other Nashville students and community leaders participated in the Freedom Ride from Montgomery, Alabama, to Jackson, Mississippi, where they were intercepted by National Guard troops and jailed. As a co-leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) with John Lewis, Lafayette also led protests and demonstrations in 1964 calling for local restaurants to desegregate.

We were honored to interview Bernard Lafayette Jr. in 2023 as part of the Nashville Civil Rights Movement Documentation Project. Read more about his role in the Nashville Student Movement in that documentation posted on our Grants and Special Projects page.

Image: Bernard Lafayette mugshot, 1964, Jackson, Mississippi. Credit: crmvet.org.

Join Belmont Mansion on May 30th at 3:30pm as Staci Catron, the Senior Director of the Cherokee Garden Library at the Atlanta History Center, will be speaking from her book, "Seeking Eden", an exploration of Georgia’s rich garden heritage from the mid-eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries. These public and private gardens include nineteenth-century parterres, Colonial Revival gardens, Country Place–era landscapes, rock gardens, and historic town squares. The book is widely regarded as a model for documenting gardens and regional landscapes.

The event begins in Belmont University's Leu Center for the Visual Arts where Ms. Catron will be speaking. Afterwards the Director of Gardens at Belmont University will guide guests on a tour of the Belmont gardens. The afternoon concludes with a reception and book signing in Belmont Mansion’s Grand Salon.

Ms. Catron is a nationally recognized historic preservation scholar and the past president and honorary director of the Southern Garden History Society. In 2023, she was awarded the Historic Preservation Medal by the Garden Club of America. For tickets and more information, visit the Belmont Mansion website.

The c. 1840 Grizzard Family Cemetery in Goodlettsville was recently listed on the Tennessee Historic Cemetery Register following an application submitted by descendant Jason Dority as part of his broader effort to document, preserve, and bring recognition to the site. Since then, Dority has continued researching the cemetery’s history, ownership, parcel status, and boundaries; reviewed archival, deed, and genealogical records; and coordinated with the Tennessee Historical Commission (THC) and Metropolitan Historical Commission for technical preservation guidance. He also met on site with THC Cemetery Specialist Graham Perry, who provided guidance on marker resetting, landscape maintenance considerations, and both short- and long-term preservation needs.

Additionally, Dority recently created social media pages and a community group for education, documentation, public awareness, and descendant outreach, and is in the process of establishing a nonprofit organization to support the cemetery’s long-term preservation. Organized cleanup efforts have helped to address storm damage, removed fallen trees and debris, improved access and documented damage to the historic dry-laid stone wall. Dority is actively pursuing signage to help recognize the cemetery and share more of its history.

Looking for a way to celebrate America 250 this year? In Dialogue with America is a year-long public humanities project created for the 250th anniversary of the United States in 2026. The project invites adults to engage the American story through sustained reading, reflection, and dialogue rather than debate or commentary. Curated by educator and cultural facilitator Michelle René Hill, the project brings together literature, historical scholarship, and visual art to explore how American identity has been shaped through story, memory, power, and cultural imagination. Rather than advancing a single argument or viewpoint, In Dialogue with America creates structure and space for inquiry, interpretation, and shared meaning making-over time.

Over twelve months, participants explore a series of thematic inquiries into the American story. Each month centers on a single theme and approaches it through three complementary lenses (participants choose to either read the fiction or nonfiction selection):

• Fiction, to explore lived experience and narrative
• Nonfiction, to provide historical and cultural context
• Visual art, to engage imagination and symbolic meaning

Themes include national origin stories, American exceptionalism, race and representation, capitalism and culture, land and belonging, and the ongoing question of who gets to tell the American story. Participants may engage independently or in groups, and the project is designed to work equally well for individuals, book clubs, libraries, and community organizations.

Visit www.indialoguewithamerica.com to learn more about the program and how to join!