Pennington Bend

Pennington Bend and the Briley Parkway Bridge in the mid-1960's. Photo from Metro Nashville Archives.

Pennington Bend is probably most known today for the Opry Mills Shopping Center. From 1972 until 1997 it was home to the Opryland Amusement Park. Before Opryland came to the bend, it was mostly farmland. From the mid-1940's until 1990, Rudy's Farm Sausage Company operated in the bend. It was a community where everyone knew each other.

McSpadden's Bend. Foster's 1871 map of Davidson County

Some of the first landowners were Lardner Clark, James Mulherrin, John Graves, and Thomas Craighead.  Thomas McSpadden was an early resident, buying land there in 1797. The early deeds referred to the property as being in "as the first large bend above Nashville." The area came to be known as McSpadden's Bend.

In 1814, Graves Pennington came to the bend. He purchased his first tract of land from Thomas McSpadden. Over the next 50 years, the Pennington family bought many tracts of land and eventually had a large farm there. Sometime after 1880, the area began to be called Pennington's Bend.  It is called by that name today. 

Pennington Bend, 1907

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Following is the obituary for John W. Pennington, son of Graves Pennington. He died in McSpadden's Bend. 

The Tennessean, August 26, 1877