Clarksville Photos

[Fallingwater]

Recent trip to Clarksville yielded these photographs. First photo is of the new FM Bank under construction downtown. The pic was taken from the railroad tressle over Commerce Street. The abandoned tressle was recently integrated into part of the Upland Trail Walking path which is connected to the Riverwalk.

Franklin Street has seen better days but I do believe is poised for a resurrection. It offers one of the finest outdoor museums of late 19th century Architecture to be found and still retains much charm.

This pic was also taken from the Upland Trail Walking path and the view is looking toward the Criminal Justice Complex.

This odd building was once a Post Office but now houses a museum

One of the most handsome courthouses you will find anywhere! They don't make them like this any longer, people!

More photos to follow........ stay tuned.

[Fallingwater]

PART II

This shot was taken from the roof of the Royal York Apartment building.

As was this one....

Franklin Street provides some wonderful detailing and displays some fine craftsmanship on many of its buildings. One of my favorites is the Knights of Pythias Building.

View of the carytids on the Knights of Pythias building.

This shot was kind of taken by accident......... sorry.

A view from the Cumberland Riverwalk of the Riverview Inn Hotel.

[Rural King]

Great pics! I for one love threads on smaller cities and towns across our great state, so I particularly enjoyed this thread and hope you do more on the city in the future.

Clarksville seems to be making great strides in the aftermath of the tornado damage it suffered several years ago (97?). I was very impressed with all the new construction and revitalization going on in its downtown when I was last there a couple of years ago, and this thread gives me a glimpse of teh progress they have made since then.

The FM Bank looks like it will be a fine addition to the downtown. I did not know such a substantial structure was going up downtown at the moment. I think it will definately add to the urban feel of the downtown, which with all the new infill is picking back up. From what I have seen the tornado took out quite a bit of great old urban structures and infill, but on the other hand the properties it cleared out probably helped spur some of the revitalization that the downtown currently is enjoying.

[Relient J]

Thanks so much for the pics, Fallingwater! I've never been to Clarksville, but of course have heard some things about it through our discussions here at UP. Thakns for giving me some visuals to match up to that information!

[Fallingwater]

Great pics! I for one love threads on smaller cities and towns across our great state, so I particularly enjoyed this thread and hope you do more on the city in the future.

Clarksville seems to be making great strides in the aftermath of the tornado damage it suffered several years ago (97?). I was very impressed with all the new construction and revitalization going on in its downtown when I was last there a couple of years ago, and this thread gives me a glimpse of teh progress they have made since then.

The FM Bank looks like it will be a fine addition to the downtown. I did not know such a substantial structure was going up downtown at the moment. I think it will definately add to the urban feel of the downtown, which with all the new infill is picking back up. From what I have seen the tornado took out quite a bit of great old urban structures and infill, but on the other hand the properties it cleared out probably helped spur some of the revitalization that the downtown currently is enjoying.

Hello Rural King,

Thank you for the comments. Clarksville is my hometown and where I grew up but I have not lived there since 1981. My parents and some other relatives still reside there which affords me the opportunity to venture back ever so often. At any rate, from 81-95 I lived in Nashville and from 95-present I have been living in Murfreesboro.

Clarksville has a history of expanding outward but this expansion, I believe, came with a price. The downtown area was largely emptied and forgotten and those areas around downtown turned to blight. The tornado of '99 perhaps served to spark some interest and you now see a trickle of activity. Additionally, since Clarksville had some traffic problems 30 years ago and particularly the bottleneck at Riverside Drive and New Providence Blvd. (the Red River at that junture separates South Clarksville from North Clarksville), they began building bypasses which will eventually form a ring around the city. So, someone from North Clarksville, for instance, can now take 101st Airborne Division Pkwy to all the new shops, malls, and eateries in St. Bethlehem and need not pass through the city's center in order to arrive there. All this expansion and the building of bypasses served, IMO, to gut the city's core. A HUGE amount of building has been going on for the past 20 years in St. Bethlehem and the northernmost area of Clarksville (and extends into Oak Grove Kentucky) but I did not take my camera there because such things as Malls, KFC's, Home Depots, and Walmart Supercenters are things which can normally be found in any community and are of little interest architecturally speaking. Hence, all of my photos were taken in the immediate downtown area. I also do not like being tied up in the traffic snarls to be found in some of the outlying areas such as St. Bethlehem nor can I think of what might make an interesting photograph or one which might adequately capture the shear amount of development which has taken place in such areas.

The city of Clarksville is projected to achieve a population of over 200,000 in the matter of a few short decades from now but I do not anticipate the building of a modern "skyline." As has been pointed out by others, Clarksville is a karsk region with caves beneath so building vertically is problematic. I remember the widening of University Avenue and it kept caving in at the corner of University and Frankilin. Additionally, I do believe there is still an ordinance which prohibits downtown building heights to be above that of the Courthouse which I believe is about 150 feet.

So, I have lived in Clarksville, Nashville, and Murfreesboro. Would I want to ever move back to Clarksville? No. I loved my time there but I moved on. Would I want to ever move back to Nashville? No. I loved my time there but headed south for better schools for my children and closer proximity to my work as well as getting more house for my dollar. Do I want to live the remainder of my life in Murfreesboro? No. It is perhaps the nicest community in which I have lived overall (The 'Boro has no seedy side and I actually like that to a degree - hehe) but I have virtually no attachment to it although I am thinking about taking my camera to downtown Murfreesboro sometime in the near future. This will never come to pass but, ideally, I would like to wind up in one of three places: A nice cabin in the mountains of East Tennessee; A nice place on Lake Barkley; Chicago.

Here are some additional pics which I placed on the Tennessee forum:

Another pic of the new FM Bank under construction downtown as seen from the Upland Trail Walking path. I really like this building but I may be a bit biased since I was good friends with one of the Architects many year's ago.

Uhm, the next one is not a good photo at all but it does partially show the pedestrian walkway over Riverside Drive and the Riverview Hotel is behind that clump of trees.

Finally, an empty lot and a construction crane in the distance. This photo is sort of symbolic, I suppose. There was once a building on the empty lot in the foreground but it was destroyed by the tornado which devestated downtown a few year's ago. As you can see, Clarksville is in the process of rising from that tragedy and I tell you what...... if I was a developer then that empty lot would certainly catch my eye.

[miami1855]

I think you can build taller structures in Clarksville, but it takes more infrastructure than usual. The Sundquist Building on campus is almost as tall beneath ground level as it is above. A massive amount of work went in to steel supports and foundations below ground on an area that is prone to sinkholes. So, I think it can be done. It is just a matter of what investor or developer is willing to pay that much extra for the needed infrastructure. I think that Clarksville has sprawled outward b/c of this as well. There has been talk for years of making Clarksville/Montgomery County a metro area, mainly b/c the city is so spread out.

But you are right in that not many buildings in town or on campus are above 3-4 stories because of this. However, I still think that Clarksville's downtown looks somewhat dense and tall because, like Nashville, it is built on a series of hills. Therefore, its a sight to see when coming into downtown off the river.

I will try to get some pics taken in the coming weeks. Clarksville is experiencing a major boom and I think its worth noting on this forum.

[Fallingwater]

Thanks so much for the pics, Fallingwater! I've never been to Clarksville, but of course have heard some things about it through our discussions here at UP. Thakns for giving me some visuals to match up to that information!

Hello Relient J,

Thank you for the comments.

As I relayed to Rural King; Clarksville is my hometown but I have not resided there since 1981. Since it is the place where I grew up and had my 'formative years' it is a place in which I will always have great interest.

My photos were all taken downtown since I think that is the only place in Clarksville which offers any Architecture of note. The story of Clarksville's growth lies outside the parameters of my recent photo ops although there does seem to be some revitalized interest in downtown.

I think it important to understand that Clarksville is not embraced civically by its populous nearly as much as places like Murfreesboro. There is a tremendously diverse population in Clarksville with a large transient population. So, someone in the military, for instance, is not generally going to be involved with the community since they will likely be moving in a few years. Drive down Wilma Rudolph Blvd. and you will see license plates from virtually every State in the union. Walk around North Clarksville and you are very likely to hear Korean or Spanish rather than English. Yet, recent figures came out confirming that Clarksville's economy actually grew while Ft. Campbell was deployed to Iraq squelching the myth that Clarksville's economy is dependent upon Ft. Campbell. My point though is that one reason you do not find a lot of rah-rah boosterism for Clarksville lies, IMO, in the fact that it does have such a diverse population and is comprised of many ethnicitys and people hailing from entirely different States (and Countrys) other than Tennessee.

At any rate, my photo interests lie in downtown which was largely abandoned as Clarksville expanded and built bypasses around the city. It is good to see some projects going on there now but the essence of Clarksville now lies in that loose connection of neighborhoods spread out some 25 miles in length from North to South. They are not continuous nor contiguous and many are found only in pockets. Clarksville, then, is incredibly spread out where so many neighborhoods lie in isolation in relation to all others and a visitor would be hard pressed to even locate them sa they are not visible from major thoroughfares. This can clearly be seen via sattelite imagery. Murfreesboro's neighborhoods look continuous and are next to one another for the most part - they run into one another. Clarksville has the same in areas (particularly the old city limits) but for the most part you will find one or two very large neighborhoods together (I am speaking of the growth which has occured over the last 20 years) then some open land then some more neighborhoods - spread out over a much larger area.

I do hope to soon take my camera to downtown Murfreesboro but I have currently exhausted my bandwidth (?) limits on the site which hosts my pics (I did this all in one day!) so it might not until next month before I would post them. Again, I would stay mainly downtown because Old Fort Pkwy traffic or a Mall is of little interest to me photographically. Downtown is where you will find a city's character. I do like the modern structures being built on campus at MTSU and might venture there too but insofar as the older part of campus..... well.... I always thought it was one of the most butt ugly campuses to be found anywhere. Thankfully that is changing and the new structures are exciting and dynamic.

[Fallingwater]

I think you can build taller structures in Clarksville, but it takes more infrastructure than usual. The Sundquist Building on campus is almost as tall beneath ground level as it is above. A massive amount of work went in to steel supports and foundations below ground on an area that is prone to sinkholes. So, I think it can be done. It is just a matter of what investor or developer is willing to pay that much extra for the needed infrastructure. I think that Clarksville has sprawled outward b/c of this as well. There has been talk for years of making Clarksville/Montgomery County a metro area, mainly b/c the city is so spread out.

But you are right in that not many buildings in town or on campus are above 3-4 stories because of this. However, I still think that Clarksville's downtown looks somewhat dense and tall because, like Nashville, it is built on a series of hills. Therefore, its a sight to see when coming into downtown off the river.

I will try to get some pics taken in the coming weeks. Clarksville is experiencing a major boom and I think its worth noting on this forum.

Oh, sure it is possible to build highrises in Clarksville but the expense would indeed be much moreso than if those same structures were built elsewhere.

Going back to the widening of University Avenue. My father and Grandfather once co-owned a business at the intersection of University and Franklin and they widened Univeristy I think back in the 70's. It kept caving in and I believe it was the case that it was found that those caves underneath Clarksville are linked to the Mammoth Cave system. Wow!... if that be true.

Oh, those "series of hills." You need not tell me about those since it was less than one week ago that I climbed up those suckers! Man..... steep!

Haven't they voted on Metro a few times in the past?