Tennessee State Capitol Tour
Part 2. The Sculpture and Architecture on Tennessee’s Capitol Hill
The Tennessee State Capitol grounds wrap around the capitol on Capitol Hill and then extend to the north forming the Bicentennial Capitol Mall, and then carves its way south into downtown Nashville to form the Legislative Plaza. Capitol Hill was formerly known as Cedar Knob, and then as Campbell’s Hill for George W Campbell, 1769 to 1848, a judge, statesman and diplomat, that sold the land to the state for construction of the capitol. It is the highest point in Nashville and commands a grand view over the city and across the Cumberland River to the east.
Capitol Hill Monuments
The capitol grounds on the hill around the Capitol includes a number of statues, artifacts, and buildings. As you visit the grounds and the various levels up the hill, be sure to stop and look around at the vista the capitol has across Nashville and the Cumberland River.
Beginning at the southwest corner of the capitol and moving clockwise around the grounds you will find the Sam Davis statue, Tennessee Supreme Court building, the former State Library and Archives building, a Bell Tower, Capitol Relics, President James Polk tomb, Andrew Jackson equestrian statue, Andrew Johnson statue, Alvin York statue, and the base to the Edward Carmack statue.
Sam Davis
Sam Davis, 1842 to 1863, was a Confederate war hero that fought in several battles and was executed by Union forces for espionage. He died refusing to give up the names of friends that provided the information on Union forces he was carrying when captured. His statue was sculpted by George Julian Zolnay in 1909.
George Julian Zolnay, 1863 to 1949, was born in Bucharest Romania, and studied at Saint Sava National College, the National School of Fine Arts in Bucharest, several artisans in Paris France, and at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts of Vienna. In 1893 he moved to the United States and eventually became a noted “Sculptor of the Confederacy” for his many sculptures depicting southern themes. There were no images of Sam Davis, so he used images of his relatives to create his likeness.
Tennessee Supreme Court
The Tennessee Supreme Court building was completed in 1937 in a Neoclassical architectural style by the architects Mar & Holman. The style is sometimes referred to as Stripped Classicism because it is a recognized classical form but stripped of most classical ornamental detailing.
Marr & Holman was an architectural firm formed in 1913 by Joseph Holman, 1890 to 1952, and Thomas Marr, 1866 to 1936. Their firm was based in Nashville Tennessee and became noted for their classical designs, with several buildings still standing today and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
State Library and Archives
The Tennessee Secretary of State building was originally built as the State Library and Archives and still carries that name over the entrance portico. The library was established in 1854 and this building was completed in 1952. The building was designed in a Neoclassical architectural style by the architect Clinton Parrent. The new State Library and Archives building is located at the northeast corner of the Bicentennial Capitol Mall.
Henry Clinton Parrent Jr, 1902 to 1967, was born in Davidson County Tennessee and studied at Vanderbilt University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Rhodes College. He is noted for this work in a Neoclassical architectural style, and the Gothic Revival architectural style at Rhodes College in Memphis Tennessee.
Bell Tower
The Bell Tower, also called the Answer Bell, is a monument to music with eight sculptural reliefs around its base featuring representations of Rock N Roll, Country, Blues, Gospel, Bluegrass, Jazz, Folk, and Classical.
The bell tower was designed by Tuck Hinton Architects, and artist Paul Harmon in 2003.
Capitol Relics
The Capitol Relics is a display of limestone fragments from the exterior restoration done in the 1950s to repair and replace broken limestone. Indiana limestone was used which can be identified if you look closely, as it has a brown tone, whereas the original Tennessee limestone has a gray tone. The Capitol Relics display is called the Charles Warterfield Reliquary, and was set in place in 1995, to honor Charles Warterfield, the chief architect on the 1980s grounds renovation, and a longtime architect on capitol restoration projects.
Charles Wesley Warterfield Jr, 1926 to 1998, was born in Nashville Tennessee, and studied at Vanderbilt University and Yale University. He was involved in the capitol exterior restoration projects in the 1950s, the interior projects in the 1980s, and served on the master planning team for the Bicentennial Capitol Mall.
James K Polk
James Knox Polk, 1795 to 1849, was the 11th president of the United States from Tennessee. He and his wife, Sarah Childress Polk, are entombed on this site, in a monument designed by the capitol architect, William Strickland.
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson, 1767 to 1845, the 7th President of the United States, was sculpted in this equestrian statue by Clark Mills in 1880. The original statue is in Washington DC, and additional replicas are located in Jacksonville Florida, and New Orleans Louisiana.
Clark Mills, 1815 to 1883, was born near Syracuse New York and worked in a variety of trades including lumberjack, farmhand, carpenter, millwright and ornamental plasterer. In 1937 he opened his own studio and foundry, and soon developed a new method for making life-masks, which he used to make sculptured busts. Major works include this equestrian sculpture of Andrew Jackson, another with George Washington, the Statue of Freedom, and Abraham Lincoln. He had eleven slaves working for him when they were freed under the 1862 District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act.
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson, 1808 to 1895, was the 17th President of the United States, and like the bust inside the capitol, it was sculpted by Jim Gray in 1955.
Alvin C York
Sergeant Alvin C York, 1887 to 1864, was a highly decorated World War 1 soldier from Fentress County Tennessee. His statue was sculpted by Felix de Weldon in 1968.
Felix de Weldon, 1907 to 2003, was born in Vienna and studied at Marchetti College, and the University of Vienna Academy of Creative Arts and School of Architecture. He moved to the United States in 1937 and enlisted in the Navy during World War 2. Weldon was appointed to the US Commission of Fine Arts, and is noted for his many war memorial sculptures.
Edward W Carmack
Edward Ward Carmack, 1858 to 1908, was a US Senator from Tennessee, and a documented racist for his editorial publications supporting lynchings that occurred in Memphis Tennessee. He was killed when he attempted to shoot a political rival, Duncan Brown Cooper, but missed wounding his son, who in turn shot and killed Carmack in self defense. His statue was sculpted by Nancy Cox-McCormack, and stood in front of the Tennessee State Capitol with much controversy, from 1927 to 2020, when protestors tore it down.
This photograph of the Edward Carmack sculpture was taken on my tour in 2019, before its removal. It shows that it was in front of the capitol on the south side facing the Legislative Plaza. Plans for the statue are vague, but it is likely to be placed in the Tennessee State Museum, which would seem more appropriate. The bust of a similar controversial figure, Nathan Bedford Forrest, a noted Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard, was removed from the capitol and placed in the museum in 2021.
The sculptor, Nancy Cox McCormack, 1885 to 1967, was born in Nashville Tennessee and studied at the Ward Seminary, the Saint Louis School of Fine Arts at Washington University, and the Art Institute of Chicago. She set up a studio in Chicago producing numerous busts and reliefs. In 1922 she toured in Europe setting up a studio for a couple years in Rome Italy. Upon return she worked out of studios in New York and Pennsylvania.
Legislative Plaza
On the south side, across the street from the capitol is the Legislative Plaza. It includes several war memorials and the War Memorial Building that is currently being restored.
War Memorial Building
The War Memorial Building was built in 1925, in a Neoclassical architectural style by the architect Edward Emmett Dougherty. It includes a 2,000 seat auditorium that was home to the Grand Ole Opry from 1939 to 1943. It is managed by the Tennessee Performing Arts Center and is still in use for that purpose today. Exterior restoration work was in progress on this visit, so the building and several war memorial monuments around the building were not accessible.
Edward Emmett Dougherty, 1876 to 1943, was born in Atlanta Georgia, and studied at the University of Georgia, Cornell University, and the École des Beaux Arts in Paris France. Dougherty was affiliated with several firms with his success in Atlanta leading to work in Nashville where he moved and set up a new practice in 1916.
The inscription above the entrance portico is a quote from Woodrow Wilson in his 1917 address to Congress recommending war with Germany, ultimately known as World War 1. The inscription reads as follows …
AMERICA IS PRIVILEGED TO SPEND HER BLOOD AND HER MIGHT FOR THE PRINCIPLES THAT GAVE HER BIRTH AND HAPPINESS AND THE PEACE WHICH SHE HAS TREASURED. WOODROW WILSON
The courtyard beyond the entrance portico features a sculpture titled “Youth” by Belle Kinney Scholz, holding up a statue of “Nike” a mythological goddess of victory in any field including art, music, athletics, and war. Belle Kinney also did the Confederate Women’s Memorial in the southwest courtyard.
Korean War Memorial
Toward the south end of Legislative Plaza is the Korean War Memorial by sculptor Russ Faxon completed in 1992. It depicts two soldiers in battle with a map of North and South Korea in the background.
Russell Faxon, born 1951, is from Independence Missouri and raised in Bowling Green Kentucky. He studied at Memphis State University, Western Kentucky University, and in Pietrasanta Italy. He moved to Bell Buckle Tennessee in 1979 where he established the Selah Studio.
Vietnam Veterans Memorial
In the southwest courtyard is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial which depicts three soldiers on alert. They were sculpted by Alan LeQuire in 1986.
Alan LeQuire is also the sculptor of the bronze relief in the Capitol commemorating the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution that gave women the right to vote in 1968.
Confederate Women’s Memorial
The Confederate Women’s Memorial depicts the allegorical figure Fame, bestowing honor and comfort to a Confederate woman tending to a dying Confederate soldier. This sculpture was not accessible due to the construction barricades, but there are two sculptures like this by Belle Kinney. One in the Legislative Plaza extension to the Tennessee State Capitol grounds erected in 1926, and the sculpture shown below in front of the Mississippi State Capitol, erected in 1912. The Mississippi monument includes an elaborate inscription, whereas the Tennessee monument includes the inscription titles only.
Belle Marshall Kinney Scholz, 1890 to 1959, was born in Tennessee, and studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. She opened a studio in Greenwich Village New York, and completed many major works independently, and together with sculptor Leopold F Scholz, whom she eventually married.
Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park
The Bicentennial Capitol Mall was developed to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Tennessee’s statehood in 1996. It tells the state’s history through a variety of monuments and exhibits on the Mall, and a museum adjacent to the Mall. The Mall design concept is based on the National Mall in Washington DC and was initially conceptualized and proposed by Governor Ned McWherter as part of the bicentennial planning.
The park was designed by Tuck Hinton Architects, SSOE Engineers, and Ross/Fowler Landscape Architects. At the north end of the mall on the east and west sides is located two relatively new buildings, the new Tennessee State Library and Archives, and the Tennessee State Museum.
The Tennessee State Library and Archives at the northeast corner of the Mall was built to replace the 1952 building west of the Capitol that is now used by the Tennessee Secretary of State.
The Tennessee State Museum at the northwest corner of the Mall is a new museum which chronicles the first people in the Tennessee region up through our current era. I have toured this museum and it is excellent. Just south of the museum also on the west side is a Farmer’s Market where I parked and had lunch.
Travel Notes
Parking in downtown Nashville with easy access to the Capitol is a problem. Good luck! After searching the downtown area around the Legislative Plaza without success, I chose to park at the Nashville Farmer’s Market, which is free, and then walk up to the capitol. It says 2 hour parking, but I overstayed my spot and did not get a ticket. I made this journey twice in one day, before lunch and after lunch, and so I guess my quest for details took over to counting the vertical steps up to the Capitol.
There are about 142 steps from the Bicentennial Mall up to the Charles Warterfield Reliquary, another 98 steps up to the Andrew Jackson monument, another 50 steps up to the east Capitol patio platform where you discover that the entrance is around on the west side, for another 5 steps up to get inside. About 295 steps, twice up and down on one hot humid day. Sheesh, I got my workout.
This earned a well deserved break at the Nashville Farmers’ Market where they have a food court, farmers market, and home and garden greenhouses at the Gardens of Babylon.
The entrance to the food court on the north side included these two murals called Adanedi, by the Norf Art Collective, which express the need to take care of our natural resources and each other. I enjoyed lunch at the food court, and at the end of the day, ice cream at Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream. It was Splendid!
Notes and References:
Story and photographs by David Smitherman, with data collected from onsite inscriptions and brochures, Wikipedia, and Google Maps. Site visits were made in October 2019, June 2021, and June 2024.
Temples of Democracy by Henry Russell Hitchcock and William Seale, 1976.
Adanedi. https://publicartarchive.org/collections/Metro-Arts--Nashville-Office-of-Arts---Culture
Russell Faxon. https://russfaxon.com/about