Nashville city (regional capital), history - Pictures
The Nashville area was used as a hunting ground by Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Shawnee peoples prior to the arrival of Europeans. In about 1710 French fur traders founded a trading post that became known as French Lick. In 1779 settlers from North Carolina arrived at the site and established Fort Nashborough, named for Francis Nash, a brigadier general in the American Revolution. They drew up the Cumberland Compact, which outlined self-government for the area and established the first civilian rule in the region. In 1784 the community was renamed Nashville, which was regarded as sounding less British than Nashborough.
Situated at the northern terminus of the Natchez Trace, a military and commercial road that penetrated the interior of the Old Southwest, Nashville served as an important outpost for the expansion of American settlement through the region. The city became a bustling river port following the initiation of steamboat travel on the Cumberland River. In 1843 the city became the permanent state capital. Railroads entered Nashville in the 1850s and it soon became center of southern rail transportation.
