Fort Negley - Nashville, Tennessee
Posted by: 
BruceS
N 36° 08.600 W 086° 46.528
16S E 520199 N 3999869
Historic partially restored Civil War fort now historical park in Nashville, Tennessee.
Waymark Code: WMGCWF
Location: Tennessee, United States
Date Posted: 02/15/2013
Views: 3
FORT NEGLEY, Chestnut St. and Ridley Blvd., erected by Federal Gen. James S. Negley of Pennsylvania in 1862, was restored in 1937 by WPA. The original plans made by Brig.-Gen. James St. Clair were used. Many of the walls and much of the foundation of the abandoned fort were found intact when the restoration was made. The large stone and iron building, with its complex polygonal plan, stands on the summit of the hill. Two bomb-proof basements are roofed with iron. The guns of Fort Negley opened the Battle of Nashville in 1864.
During the Reconstruction Period the abandoned fort was used as a meeting place by the Ku Klux Klan. The musty crypts and debris-littered galleries were well suited to midnight gatherings, and sentries on the parapets could warn against the approach of troops. All efforts of the Union Army of Occupation to stamp out the Klan failed. By 1870 the last of the carpetbaggers and "scalawags" had left town, and Grand Wizard Nathan Bedfort Forrest ordered the Klan dissolved. - Tennessee: A Guide to the State, Nashville section, pgs 200 - 201
The restoration work on fort begun by the WPA stopped with the advent of World War II due to lack of funds, manpower and interest. After the war the site continued to languish and became a site of vandalism and minor crimes and it was closed to the public and the site was allowed to become over grown. After years of discussion and negotiations enough funding was raised in the early part of the the 2000 decade to begin a new restoration project. The fort was reopened to the public for the first time in decades on December 10, 2004. The approach with this recent restoration was not to restore the fort its Civil War appearance but was to stabilize the ruins, improve accessibility, and more more visible by removing overgrown trees. Several interpretive signs have been added to explain the history of the fort. What exists today for the fort is a combination of the original fortification and the WPA restoration. In 2007 a visitors center was built using $1 million in city funds. Additional work on the site is planned.