Nashville was founded on Christmas day in 1779 on a bluff overlooking the Cumberland River.  Its riverfront birthplace remained the heart of the settlement and grew into what is now Downtown Nashville.  A replica of Fort Nashboro stands in Riverfront Park as a reminder of those earliest days.  Most of the nearby nineteenth century buildings are included in three National Register Historic Districts - Second Avenue, Broadway, and Printer's Alley - which are collectively referred to as the District, now the entertainment hub of the central city.  The DISTRICT, Inc., was formed in the 1980s as a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering economic revitalization and preservation of these historically and architecturally significant sections of downtown.

  

In 1972, Second Avenue became the first district in Nashville to receive National Register status.  Known as Market Street until 1903, the street was the commercial heart of the city in the latter half of the nineteenth century.  Dry goods, hardware, and groceries shipped down the river and unloaded at the wharf where Riverfront Park is now were received in the entrances along Front Street (now First Avenue) then sold out the front doors on Market Street.  Most of the block-deep warehouses and their Victorian commercial facades date from 1870 to 1890.  Beginning in the 1970s, interest in renovation and restoration led to the transformation of these warehouses into restaurants, shops, and entertainment venues.

 

Like Second Avenue, Broadway's proximity to the Cumberland shaped its nineteenth century development as a mercantile district, with its outstanding Victorian buildings housing varied retail businesses.  The Grand Ole Opry's move to the Ryman Auditorium on Fifth Avenue just north of Broadway in 1941 brought Broadway a new identity with country music and was the impetus for numerous music and tourism related businesses.

Printer's Alley takes its name from its early connection with Nashville's printing and publishing industry, then located in the immediate area. The alley also became the center of the city's nightlife and serviced the hotels, restaurants, and saloons fronting on Fourth Avenue, which was known as the Men's Quarter in the late nineteenth century. Nightclubs opened here in the 1940s, and the alley became a showcase for the talents of performers such as Boots Randolph, Chet Atkins, Waylon Jennings, Hank Williams, Dottie West, Gretchen Wilson, and Rascal Flatts. This historic district's architecture includes elegant late Victorian styles, Nashville's first automobile parking garage, and the city's first "skyscraper."