In 1925, the WSM Barn Dance debuted live in Nashville, broadcast from the fifth floor radio station studio of the National Life & Accident Insurance Company. Hosted by George "Judge" Hay, the show regularly featured bands like the Possum Hunters and the Gully Jumpers, and each show would close with what Hay called the "red hot fiddle playing" of the Fruit Jar Drinkers. This show went on to become the Grand Ole Opry, an iconic country music enterprise that would earn Nashville the title of "Music City U.S.A."

In 1779, James Robertson and John Donelson led around 200 settlers, some on horseback and some on foot, to the banks of the Cumberland River. There, they constructed Fort Nashborough, a log stockade named for Revolutionary War hero Francis Nash. At the time, the territory was a part of North Carolina, so it was the North Carolina legislature that incorporated the town in 1784 and renamed it Nashville. In 1796, North Carolina ceded a large portion of its land to the federal government, which became the state of Tennessee. Nashville received its city charter in 1806 and was named the permanent capital in 1843. During the Civil War, Nashville became the first state capital to fall to Union troops in March of 1862.