Chas Sisk

csisk@tennessean.com

Why are so many major roads in Nashville called “pikes”?

Even long-time residents call the major streets leading into Nashville “roads,” but historically most would have been known as “pikes.”

The meaning of the term has blurred over the decades, but a century ago, Middle Tennesseans would have understood the distinction. Pikes — such as Charlotte Pike, Dickerson Pike and Hillsboro Pike — were privately-funded toll roads, says Tim Walker, executive director of the Metro Historical Commission. Travelers would have paid to use them and the money went into maintenance, improvements and owners’ pockets.

Who used the pikes, and how much was the toll?

The pikes were the main roads for farmers bringing goods to market and visitors arriving from other parts of Middle Tennessee.

A marker next to the Harris Teeter grocery store on Hillsboro Pike hints at the pike’s importance and how much owners charged. In 1848, the Nashville and Hillsboro Turnpike Co.’s toll was set at 3 cents per horse or mule. The toll was 20 cents for every 10 sheep, and 25 cents for every 20 cattle. Carriage drivers paid 25 cents as well.

When did the tolls come down?

They may have come down gradually around the turn of the 20th century. An 1898 map kept in the Historical Commission’s office shows several toll gates, including the one on Hillsboro Pike. It came down just five years later in 1903. Tolls on the Hyde’s Ferry Turnpike ended in 1916. Walker was uncertain about the rest.

Who built Nashville’s pikes?

Travelers have used the routes since the city’s founding and perhaps even before, when Native Americans were the only people who frequented Middle Tennessee. But they became pikes in the 19th century, when private companies made the improvements, such macadam paving, that justified charging a toll.

The pikes gave Nashville its distinctive hub-and-spoke layout, rather than the grid typically found in flatter cities, said Walker. With each successive upgrade, the pikes probably became just a bit straighter.

The pikes also shaped the city’s economic development. Instead of clustering in large commercial districts, businesses in Nashville have tended to locate along its pikes.

That practice has continued to today, even as the cattle and sheep once herded down Hillsboro Pike have given way to coffee shops and pricey boutiques.

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