| Year |
Events and Milestones |
| 1900 |
Union Station opens. |
| 1902 |
Centennial Park is acquired by the city, marking the beginning of Nashville’s public parks system. |
| 1902 |
The National Life Insurance company is founded in Nashville. |
| 1903 |
The Arcade opens downtown. |
| 1903 |
Thomas E. Cartwright is Sheriff of Davidson County. |
| 1904 |
Nashville’s first skyscraper is constructed at the southeast corner of 4th Avenue North and Church Street. |
| 1904 |
Some of downtown’s street names are changed to numbers. |
| 1904 |
The city’s first Carnegie Library opens at the corner of 8th Avenue North and Union Street. |
| 1904 |
The One-Cent Savings Bank, later known as Citizens’ Bank, opens. |
| 1905 |
The black community institutes a streetcar boycott to protest a new law requiring separation of the races on electric streetcars. |
| 1905 |
The Davidson County Sheriff’s Office has 14 Deputies, one Jailer, and one Turnkey, all of whom are listed by name in the City Directory. |
| 1907 |
Charles D. Johns is Sheriff of Davidson County. |
| 1907 |
Tony Sudekum opens the first movie theater in town, The Dixie, on 5th Avenue North by the Arcade. |
| 1908 |
Ex-Senator and Prohibition leader Edward Ward Carmack is shot by his political adversaries on 7th Avenue North near Union Street. |
| 1909 |
Samuel H. Borum is Sheriff of Davidson County. |
| 1909 |
Statewide prohibition is passed over the Governor’s veto. |
| 1909 |
The school that began as Davidson Academy (then Cumberland College, then University of Nashville, then Peabody Normal College) becomes the George Peabody College for Teachers. |
| 1910 |
The Hermitage Hotel opens in downtown Nashville. |
| 1910 |
The world’s first night airplane flight takes off from Cumberland Park in Nashville. |
| 1911 |
A Model-T Ford climbs the steps of the Capitol building to prove that automobiles could replace horses. |
| 1912 |
Goo-Goo candy bars are concocted. |
| 1912 |
The 8th Avenue reservoir ruptures, flooding the nearby south Nashville area. |
| 1912 |
The Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial State Normal School, later re-named Tennessee State University, opens. |
| 1913 |
C. W. Longhurst is Sheriff of Davidson County. |
| 1914 |
The National American Woman Suffrage Association meets in Nashville. |
| 1915 |
O. L. Grimes is Sheriff of Davidson County. |
| 1916 |
East Nashville is devastated by fire. |
| 1917 |
The Nashville City Directory now shows two additional positions at the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office — Assistant Jailer and Jail Physician. |
| 1917 |
World War I begins. |
| 1917 |
Joe W. Wright is Sheriff of Davidson County. |
| 1918 |
The community of Old Hickory and a powder plant are built by Dupont in Davidson County. |
| 1918 |
James R. Allen is Acting Sheriff of Davidson County. |
| 1919 |
The 18th Amendment (prohibition) is ratified. |
| 1919 |
World War I ends. |
| 1920 |
R. L. Camp is Sheriff of Davidson County. |
| 1920 |
Tennessee becomes the 36th, and deciding, state to vote for ratification of the 19th Amendment (women’s suffrage). |
| 1922 |
The Nashville City Directory ceases listing Sheriff’s Office employees by name. |
| 1925 |
The Grand Ol’ Opry begins. |
| 1926 |
Bob Briley is Sheriff of Davidson County. The Davidson County Jail is located at 427 2nd Avenue North. |
| 1927 |
The Nashville City Directory boasts that Nashville has “over 750 miles of splendidly built highways” and that “the Vanderbilt Stadium seats 22,000 people and is the largest athletic field in the South.” |
| 1927 |
Percy Warner Park, Tennessee’s largest municipal park is established in southwest Davidson County. |
| 1927 |
The War Memorial Building is constructed near the Capitol Building to expand state office space. |
| 1928 |
The Davidson County Jail now publishes its phone number as “6-6831″. |
| 1929 |
Gus S. Kiger is Sheriff of Davidson County. |
| 1929 |
The Great Depression begins when the stock market crashes on “Black Tuesday”. |
| 1930 |
The Davidson County Workhouse is in operation on Hyde’s Ferry Road, “5 miles west” of town. |
| 1930 |
Sam Shryer is Sheriff of Davidson County. |
| 1933 |
A tornado wreaks havoc in east Nashville. |
| 1933 |
President Franklin D. Roosevelt announces “The New Deal”. |
| 1934 |
Lawrence A. Bauman is Sheriff of Davidson County. |
| 1937 |
American Airlines lands its first plane at Nashville’s new airport. |
| 1937 |
Nashvillian William Edmondson becomes the first black American to be given a one-man show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. |
| 1937 |
The present Davidson County Courthouse is completed and opened. |
| 1938 |
F. A. (“Pete”) Carter is Sheriff of Davidson County. |
| 1938 |
The Nashville Housing Authority is created. |
| 1939 |
Ivey Young is Sheriff of Davidson County. |
| 1940 |
Bob Marshall is Sheriff of Davidson County. |
| 1941 |
Buses replace the electric streetcars. |
| 1941 |
The first Iroquois Steeplechase is run. |
| 1941 |
The U.S. Census Bureau’s 140 figures show Davidson County’s population as 257,267 of which 241,931 (94%) live within Nashville’s city limits. |
| 1941 |
World War II begins. |
| 1942 |
Claude A. Briley is Sheriff of Davidson County. |
| 1943 |
Cornelia Fort of Nashville becomes the first female pilot to die on war duty in American history. |
| 1943 |
The Grand Ol’ Opry moves into the Ryman Auditorium. |
| 1945 |
Three engineers at radio station WSM open “Castle Studio”, the first recording studio in Nashville, in the Tulane Hotel. |
| 1945 |
World War II ends. |
| 1947 |
Garner Robinson is Sheriff of Davidson County. |
| 1949 |
The Capitol Hill Redevelopment Project is approved as the nation’s first urban renewal project. |