The first African-American public primary school in Nashville was built on this site (then 217 S. Summer St) in 1893. The Pearl School was named for the first superintendent of Nashville schools, Joshua F. Pearl. The new building was the pride…

Nashville's waterfront was long the site of industrial and mercantile work. From the age of steamboats carrying goods along the Cumberland River in the 1890s, Nashville's industries relied on cheap, unskilled labor to move mercantile goods.…