🍻 Nashville’s best OG neighborhood bars

🍻 Nashville’s Best OG Neighborhood Bars

Holiday times with family are great. Sometimes, getting away from your family during the holidays is even better. On today’s City Cast Nashville podcast, we’re talking about the OG Nashville neighborhood bars that still provide a happy retreat for all those seeking peace on earth. [🎧 City Cast Nashville]

🏛️ Metro Council’s Final Meeting of the Year

At its final meeting of the year, Metro Council approved the mayor’s capital spending plan and a housing bill that restricts building heights in certain residential zones. They deferred consideration of an agreement with the Nashville Downtown Partnership over a $15 million safety grant until January. [Nashville Banner]

• The safety grant would allow NDP to fund security cameras, real-time surveillance software, and armored vehicles. [🎧 City Cast Nashville]
• Councilmember Sandra Sepulveda filed a compromise amendment that would cut the surveillance software from the grant. Council will consider it in January. [Nashville Scene]

✈️ BNA Traffic Woes

Nashville International Airport has experienced at least three hours-long traffic jams since September. While BNA has begun implementing a traffic plan, some argue that increasing the frequency of public bus transport would be more effective. The airport welcomed a record-breaking 24.8 million passengers this fiscal year. [Nashville Banner]

• If you’re traveling for the holidays, check out our guide to the best places to eat and shop at the airport. [📰 Hey Nashville]

🧒 ‘Immediate Attention and Meaningful Action’ Needed

An audit of the Department of Children’s Services found numerous failures in its care of the state’s 8,000 children in DCS custody, including delays in medical screenings, an overreliance on temporary housing, and insufficient investigations into child abuse. [Tennessee Lookout]

This year, the Grand Ole Opry has been celebrating its 100th birthday. The show helped cement Nashville’s Music City nickname, and propelled us into becoming the country music capital of the world. Here’s how it all started.

📻 A Radio Program Is Born

In 1925, National Life and Accident Insurance Company founded its own radio station with headquarters in a small downtown Nashville studio. “We Shield Millions,” or WSM, officially launched on Oct. 5, 1925. A month later, WSM hired George D. Hay, a prominent announcer known for his successful National Barn Dance program. Hay and Uncle Jimmy Thompson, a 77-year-old fiddle player, launched WSM Barn Dance on Nov. 28, which is considered the official day the Grand Ole Opry was born.

The program became known as the Grand Ole Opry in 1927, when Hay announced, following a classical music program, "For the past hour we have been listening to the music taken largely from the Grand Opera, but from now on we will present the Grand Ole Opry.”

The Grand Old Opry featured folk music, fiddling, and country-western music. WSM recognized a growing nostalgia for the rural past, and required live performers to dress in period costumes and adopt old-timey names.

🚚 Time To Get Moving

The show became so popular that people would crowd the fifth-floor hallways within the National Life building at 7th and Union to watch the broadcasts. National Life built separate studios to accommodate the fans, but soon outgrew those, too.

From 1934-1936, the Opry moved to the Hillsboro Theater, which later became the Belcourt Theatre. Artists often performed twice in one night to accommodate audiences. Still searching for its perfect venue, the Opry moved into East Nashville’s Dixie Tabernacle in 1936, with a dirt floor, wooden plank benches, and roll-up canvas walls. In 1939, they upgraded to the War Memorial Auditorium, but rowdy fans wore out their welcome by 1943.

Ryman Auditorium’s general manager, Lula Clay Naff, brought the Opry to the Mother Church in June of that year, and the radio program would remain there until 1974. It still returns every winter.

The Grand Ole Opry House was the first venue built specifically for the program, opening in 1974 with 4,400 seats. President Richard Nixon, Hank Snow, Stonewall Jackson, Jeannie Seely, and many more performed at its opening ceremony. In 2010, the Opry briefly moved back to the War Memorial Auditorium following historic flooding that devastated the Opry House — but the wooden circle in the stage survived.