| The Nashville Tennesseean magazine July 2, 1950  |
 |
THE area roughly known as West Nashville doesn't get much historical attention but in rambling through that section the other day we came across a left-over from the early pioneer days and it seemed worthy of notice.
For many years the youngsters of Louisiana avenue. Morrow
road and adjacent thoroughfares have played in a swampy commons that
sported only a
set of childish swings (supplied by the city park board), a sulphur
well and an old oak tree at whose foot rests a monument that the youngsters
have, regarded for many years as a tombstone. The monument, erected
by the James Robertson chapter of the Daughters
of the American Revolution, is by no means a tombstone and the sulphur
water that flows from a well in the swamp isn't especially good, but
the kids around Louisiana avenue
love both of them.
On warm summer days they congregate in the shade of the beaten oak, such as is left, that is, and speculate on what lies under the "tombstone" and then they wander westward for 50 yards or so and sip sulphur water that is pumped up by a city owned pump. At the time we visited the park the pump had been removed, reportedly for overhauling, and no sulphur water was available, Most of the toddlers who play in the restricted shade of the old oak are unable to read the inscription on the bronze plaque that is set into the limestone blocks underneath the oak, and the older children apparently don't care enough about the matter to explain it.
