Public space or private profit?

The Tennessee Centennial Exposition had provided Nashville with a long, giddy summer of celebration and stimulation. Visitors from across the state and across the country had flocked to the fairgrounds on West End Avenue, and Nashville had burnished its reputation as a city on the move. But this week in 1897, it was time to break down the exhibits and put away the party hats.

A reporter from the Nashville Daily American described the loadout. As "dark, heavy clouds hung like a pall over the melancholy scene," wagons laden with exhibits from the expo rolled slowly through the mud on what had been its pedestrian paths. Temporary buildings were being torn down, and the great organ in the auditorium was being prepared for relocation to the chapel of Fisk University.

The question now on many minds was what would become of the fairgrounds. The original plan was that organizers would purchase the land with funds generated by the expo and donate it to the city as a park. Over the summer, though, an "unfortunate yellow fever scare" had cost the fair an estimated $100,000 in gate receipts. It could not afford to make good on its generous intentions.

The people of Nashville still wanted to see a park, the newspaper said. At the closing exercises of the Centennial, mentions of the possibility "were greeted with the greatest applause, and the will of the audience was manifest." But that point of view was not universally endorsed. The American carried a letter signed "Thomas Jefferson" on November 2, written by someone who had apparently absorbed all the community-wide bonhomie he could stomach:

WHAT SHALL WE DO?

To The American,

There seems to be, as the Centennial is over, an impression in the minds of some that Nashville must suffer a period of depression. It is true that the street cars, lunch counters and hotels may not be so crowded, but there is no appearance of an argument except in the minds of croakers that there will be an unavoidable collapse. For six months we have been passing through a spasm of excitement; the all-absorbing interest has been the Centennial. Now, instead of one interest, we will have many.

A community, like an individual, must rest after an attack of fever. The county towns all over the State that have participated in the effervescence demand and a simmering down. As for myself, while I am inclined, in an un-beerish way, to be festive, yet I am beginning to long for less rush, more pavement and more elbow-room. Let every man, woman and child in this city do with all their might what their hands find to do, and the period of depression will be averted. Instead of spending our change at the Centennial, it will be diverted into a hundred other channels of trade and industry.

A city, after a hilarious vacation, is like a boy returning to his school duties from a fishing trip. As tame as it may seem, it becomes us now, after the show is closed, to get down to regular hard work.

The Centennial has been an educator in many lines. There are persons wiser because of what they have seen, and there are young people who have learned nothing at all except to drink beer. There has been certainly a move upward in the musical taste of the people, and the educational benefit to the smaller children is incalculable. Besides, many people who came from a distance and saw the beauty and fruitfulness of this land will return to live and die here.

It is natural that schemes upon schemes should follow the closing of the Exposition. The city park enterprise heads the procession, and is about as utopian as any them that will follow. The Centennial grounds are very valuable, and It is hardly probable that any company of capitalists will attempt to invest in property which would bring no dividends. We have Shelby Park on the east, Glendale Park on the south, Richland Park on the west. Cannot these grounds be improved so as to make them places of resort?

In a short time the Christmas inspiration will begin, and we will cease to mourn over the death of the Centennial.

The question of what to do with the Centennial grounds would remain under discussion for some time to come. In 1902, the city would finally appropriate money to purchase the area and would give it the name Centennial Park.

But I didn't need a license for my horse...

Controversies over the issuance of drivers' licenses have been in the national news lately, and they made the local news this week in 1930. But instead of arguing about whether illegal aliens should be denied licenses, the debate was over whether anyone in Tennessee should be required to have one. Ours was one of 31 states that as yet required no license to get behind the wheel of one's Stutz Bearcat or REO Speed Wagon.

In its November 3 issue, the Nashville Banner weighed in on the side of — perish the thought — government regulation. "It is simply a case of locking the barn before the horse is stolen, rather than lamenting the theft afterwards," the afternoon paper editorialized.

Reckon he'd make a good coach?

The day after that column ran, newly appointed Banner Sports Editor Freddie Russell got into the prognostication business. After warming up with a shtick about how Vanderbilt's four-touchdown drubbing of Ole Miss the week before had been a lackluster effort, Russell turned his attention to the senior quarterback at Tennessee, with whom he had recently been chatting in Knoxville.

Russell picked the young QB as a sure thing for All-Southern Conference and likely for All American honors, seeing "no field general in the nation who can direct a team in a more capable manner." And the sportswriter revealed that this youngster was "going into the tutoring game" after graduation. "He would like to get on as freshman coach at one of the conference schools," Russell wrote, adding that someone of this young man's capabilities "surely can teach others" and "should find little trouble in acquiring a position."

Southern Conference member Georgia Tech would in fact hire on the former UT quarterback as freshman coach in 1931, and he would stay with the Ramblin' Wreck for a while. In 1945, he would become its head coach. In 22 years at that job, he would lead Tech to 13 bowl games, two Southeastern Conference championships and the 1952 national championship. He would become one of only three honorees selected for the National College Football Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach.

His name was Bobby Dodd.

Birthdays of note this week:

• Singer/songwriter Delbert McClinton — November 4
• Organized labor specialist Dan Cornfield of Vanderbilt, Bluebird Café owner Amy Kurland, attorney Stan Chernau — November 5
• Conservative activist Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, actuary Tony Johnston of Bryan, Pendleton, Swats & McAllister — November 6
• Music Row PR maven Jenny Bohler — November 7
• Former astronaut Dr. Rhea Seddon, now with Vanderbilt Medical Group — November 8

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