OCTOBER
1990
On October 4, 1990, phase three of Vietnam Veterans Boulevard opened.
In 1973 leaders had talked about building a road to run parallel to Gallatin Road, the city’s only east/west artery. As the effort continued, the focus added a second objective, helping commuters get to and from Nashville.
The road’s first two completed phases stretched between the east and west end of Hendersonville. Commuters had to exit the bypass via the business spur on the west side of town, get onto Gallatin Road, and turn right near Rivergate mall to enter I-65.
Phase three eliminated that convoluted path, connecting the bypass directly to I-65. The opening ceremony involved Governor Ned McWherter with leaders from Sumner and Davidson counties marching from their respective sides of the county line.
At that ceremony, Melvin Spears, spoke about the name of the road: “For sixteen years I had refused to talk about my time in Vietnam, even to my wife and children.” He later explained, “After I had served my country, I came home to a different world. There was all that protesting, and all that talk of drug addicts and baby killers. I had fought. I had seen boys sent home in body bags. And I felt ashamed.” It took Spears several years to get over that shame enough to help found Vietnam Veterans Chapter #240. Later he told the chapter members that he wanted the bypass to be a memorial to Vietnam veterans.
From there, he says, they were relentless in pursuing the idea. When Governor McWherter dedicated the completed project, he referred to it as Vietnam Veterans Boulevard. “At the dedication, I was asked to say a few words to honor Sumner County’s 25 fallen men,” Spears said later. “Standing there, it was like a halo was over us all. Our state had finally acknowledged its heroes, and I realized that at last people would know their names. In that moment, I felt that I was finally being welcomed home—after 20 years of waiting.”
1971
In the midst of a surge in residential growth nearby, Rivergate Mall opened in October 1971 at the corner of Gallatin Road and Two Mile Pike, straddling the border of Goodlettsville in Davidson County.
The original 800,000-square-foot building was expanded twice within the first decade as several strip centers sprouted nearby.
The continued impact on Hendersonville’s sales tax collections was astounding. Just two years after the mall opened, a survey found that Hendersonville residents could satisfy 95 percent of their grocery needs within the city limits but only 50 percent of their retail needs.
The reason that Hendersonville had so few retail options was that major and minor retailers would not build stores in Hendersonville. They accurately predicted that Hendersonville residents were willing to travel to Rivergate. Consequently Hendersonville residents traveled to Rivergate to shop because there were no major retailers in Hendersonville.
In 1980 almost 31 percent of every retail dollar Hendersonville residents spent was outside Hendersonville, most inside and around the mall.
That spending generated sales tax revenue for schools and general government services. When it took place in Rivergate, Davidson County benefited. During a contentious decade when Hendersonville parents were demanding greater school spending from Sumner County, political leaders accused those parents of irresponsible shopping by spending too many dollars at Rivergate, a name that had become synonymous with the retail area defined by Gallatin Road, I-65 and expanding borders east and west.
The impact was also felt on the city government. Seeing so much sales tax going into Davidson County, Hendersonville had to place a greater emphasis on property taxes for government services.
With a population trained to look to Rivergate for cars, clothes, and everything in between, Hendersonville had a retail environment that was persistently unprofitable. A Star News editor once wrote, “The city’s proximity to Rivergate and Nashville is a curse to the average businessman, as many (people) would rather park at one place and walk inside a sheltered mall, than run all over Hendersonville from shop to shop.”
Along with those shops came casual dining restaurants and movie theaters. For more than 30 years, when Hendersonville residents thought of spending a night out, they meant spending money in Davidson County.
1970
On October 5, 1970, Sumner County and the City of Hendersonville met in court to settle one of many battles fought between them. The county wanted the young city to allow nonresidents to vote in city elections if they owned property there.
The county court had two obvious objectives. It wanted to discourage Hendersonville from annexing more farm land toward Gallatin, and it wanted a way to influence city government.
Possibly, members of the county court were seeking to enable a specific person to qualify to run for the Hendersonville city commission. If a candidate was in mind, the impact would have been felt by Dink Newman, the city’s mayor. Newman’s term on the city commission was expiring in 1970, leaving him open to challengers from inside—and possibly outside the city.
Even if the county did not have a candidate in mind, by adding a dozen people to the voting rolls of Hendersonville, the county court could have provided a mechanism to defeat Newman.
The county successfully got the state legislature to pass a private act to allow nonresident property owners to vote in Hendersonville. Then the county court voted to apply that law to Hendersonville.
It was not the county’s privilege to decide who could vote in city elections, claimed the Hendersonville city commission. Only the city could decide if it wanted to apply the state’s private act to city elections.
With that argument, the city sued the county election commission and delayed the 1970 election. Chancellor Edwin Turner scheduled arguments for October 5, 1970. His decision, announced on November 13, sided with the city. He wrote, “…the defendants [the members of the election commission] are hereby enjoined, restrained, prohibited from registering any person or persons who are nonresidents of the City of Hendersonville, to vote in any municipal elections of said City.”
After winning, the city held its election for February 27, 1971. With only Newman qualified to run, he gained a four-year term with thirty votes and was reelected by the other two commissioners to the post of mayor on March 11
1970
In mid-October 1970, the Bank of Hendersonville opened its first branch.
The original location, built in 1906 at the corner of Walton Ferry Road and Gallatin Road, remained the home office. The newer building was on West Main near Rockland Road.
In between the two events, locally-owned Citizens Bank started operating at the corner of Cherokee and Gallatin roads. Citizens Bank opened its first branch in 1976, giving Hendersonville its fourth bank building.
The four banking locations–all between Indian Lake Road and the Davidson County border–were quickly met with regional competition, encouraging big changes. The Bank of Hendersonville was acquired by Volunteer State Bank in 1982. Nashville City Bank bought Citizens Bank two years later.
1970
In October 1970 the Sumner County Quarterly Court decided that Hendersonville High School would have a cafeteria. Opened in 1966, the school operated without a lunchroom. Students brought their lunches or bought cold sandwiches.
The quarterly court, the county’s government body, agreed to spend $500,000 on a cafeteria and six new classrooms after years of requests from Hendersonville residents. Some of those residents had formed the Concerned Citizens Committee of Sumner County, regularly packing the meetings to demand more school funding. Specifically, they said that Hendersonville needed a new junior high school and two elementary schools.
A month after the $500,000 decision, the Concerned Citizens circulated a flier that was headed with: “THANK YOU COUNTY COURT, BUT IT IS NOT ENOUGH”. It explained, “It is difficult to be ungrateful, but the majority of the court continues to make excuses for not taking a statesmen-like position of schools. The $500,000 allocation is fine, But It’s Not Enough”.
1985
Seven months after being hired by a vote of 3-2, city commissioners voted to fire City Manager Erskine Ausbrooks by a vote of 3-2 in late October 1985.
In between his hiring and firing had been a city election that shifted the balance of power.
Ausbrooks requested a hearing where he could address the reasons for his firing. That hearing, held at the Hendersonville High School auditorium, lasted four days with 40 hours of testimony. In the end, the same three commissioners voted again to fire Ausbrooks.
Consequently allies of Ausbrooks generated a petition to remove the five city commissioners by exchanging the city’s charter with a charter that allowed 12 aldermen and an elected mayor. That charter was approved by voters, enabling Ausbrooks to qualify to run for mayor, a seat he won in a three person race in 1986.
1971
In late October 1971 the Hendersonville City Commission started an annexation battle with Gallatin that would lead to the erratic borders we have today.
Hendersonville, looking to take in commercial property, moved to annex land along Highway 31E (Gallatin Road) from Bluegrass Drive east to Station Camp Creek Road. That area included the home of County Judge I.C. McMahan, a prolific antagonist toward Hendersonville.
McMahan sought relief from the City of Gallatin, coaxing that city to annex an overlapping portion of the highway west to Shute Lane. The annexations left miles of property claimed by both cities.
Gallatin Councilman Richard Fenker noted that Hendersonville, with a population of 500, was out of its league by trying to intimidate Gallatin, with 14,000 people. Gallatin sued and won. But Hendersonville appealed.
After Hendersonville’s city election put Charles Kimbrough in the mayor’s seat. The boards of the two cities met. Kimbrough and Gallatin Mayor Ted Kelly crafted a settlement. The result was that Gallatin retained McMahan’s property and a corridor of land along 31E to Shute Lane. Hendersonville was allowed to annex eastward on both sides of that corridor.