Christmas Day Bombing Not a First for Nashville in Some Respects

By Allen Forkum

The vehicular bomb that was exploded in downtown Nashville on Christmas morning is not the city’s first Christmas Day disaster, nor the city’s first destructive downtown explosion, nor the city’s first vehicular bomb.

MAXWELL HOUSE HOTEL FIRE

Fifty-nine years ago, the Maxwell House hotel caught fire on Christmas night. The blaze gutted the historic building and killed one person. The Dec. 26, 1961, Nashville Tennessean reported: “The blaze began at 8:45 p.m. on the fourth floor, ate through the fifth floor of the five-story hotel and dropped down to the third floor. At 10:45 p.m. Maurice Schutt, drill master for the fire department, said: ‘It looks like it’s gone.’”

Read more about the Maxwell House fire in our December 2009 issue and in the “Comments From Readers” in Dispatch No. 2. Also hear Banner reporter Larry Brinton comment on the fire in Nashville Retrospect Podcast Episode 13.

POWDER MAGAZINE EXPLOSION

During October 1847, Nashvillians were alarmed by newspaper reports of numerous fires in the city, some caused by accident, some by “incendiaries” (i.e., arsonists). But on the evening of October 12, 1847, much worse happened when a strong thunderstorm passed over the city. A newspaper editor wrote of hearing a thunderclap, then a “terrific report—a lifting up sensation, as if something had exploded in the interior of the earth, with the effects of an earthquake.” He was in an office on the Public Square about one-half mile from the source of the explosion: a brick building storing gunpowder just west of Capitol Hill.

The “powder magazine” reportedly contained over 500 kegs of gunpowder and had been struck by lightning. The building was completely blown from the site, sending brick missiles throughout the city. The shock wave and debris broke almost every pane of glass in the city, some two miles away. More than 50 nearby houses were destroyed or rendered unfit for occupation, particularly on the streets Gay, Spruce (today’s Rosa L. Park Avenue) and High (today’s Sixth Avenue North). Three people were killed instantly and at least one other person died later; many more were wounded. One newspaper account described a 100-pound rock going through the roof and into the cellar of the Nashville Inn on the Public Square.

Read more about the 1847 powder magazine explosion, including a street-by-street description of the damage, in our October 2009 issue.

CLASSIC CAT II CAR BOMB

On Aug. 31, 1979, the Nashville Banner reported: “A bomb with about 300 pounds of dynamite and a timing device was found in a parked car outside the Classic Cat II nightclub at Sixth Avenue and Broadway [today the location of the National Museum of African American Music]. … The explosives were discovered by Jerry Wilson, 42, of Nashville, a roofer who was working with others to repair the nightclub. Wilson was trying to determine who owned the car when he saw dynamite on the back seat. Buford Tune, a member of the bomb squad, described the discovery of the bomb as a ‘luck find.’” Tune and another officer disarmed the bomb, which at the time was considered the largest bomb every rendered safe in the U.S.

Read more about the Class Cat II bomb, including a first-hand account by bomb technician Buford Tune, in our August 2010 issue.

PERCY PRIEST DAM DYNAMITING

Though this bombing did not happen in downtown Nashville, it was meant to affect downtown. On Nov. 21, 1978, the Nashville Banner reported: “A dynamite explosion ripped through a 500-foot tunnel at the J. Percy Priest Dam powerhouse, tearing four iron security doors from their hinges, authorities said today. The blast, which law enforcement officials said did not cause structural damage to the dam, was discovered when U.S. Army Corps of Engineers employees reported for duty at 9 a.m.” The bombers had hoped to destroy the dam, flood downtown Nashville stores, then loot them using scuba gear. Three men in their 20s received federal prison sentences.

For more about the Percy Priest dam bombing, see our November 2011 issue.

The District, Inc and Metro Historical Commission Foundation has set up a fund to help those affect by the 2020 Christmas Day bombing, for which donations can be made here.