Downtown Presbyterian Church

William Strickland gave the church an Egyptian Revival design, with lotus columns, a winged sun disk, Egyptian-style stained glass and wall paintings of Egyptian scenes. The congregation first worshiped on the site in 1816; the first building burned in 1832, and the present one followed an 1848 fire. During the Civil War federal forces seized it and used it as Union Hospital No. 8, with 206 beds. It is one of the few Egyptian Revival buildings in the country, a National Historic Landmark since April 19, 1993.

What the plaque says

Downtown Presbyterian Church From 1814 to 1955 this was the site of the First Presbyterian Church. President Andrew Jackson was received into the church in 1838. James K. Polk was inaugurated governor here in 1839. The building designed in the Egyptian style by William Strickland, architect of the State Capitol, was dedicated in 1851. When the First Church moved, the Downtown Church was organized.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Civil Rights Room at the Nashville Public Library — steps away
  A room in the downtown library with a circular lunch counter, a timeline and oral histories of the 1960 Nashville sit-ins, a few blocks from the stores where they began.
• Ryman Auditorium — steps away
  The 1892 brick tabernacle in downtown Nashville that was the Grand Ole Opry's home from 1943 to 1974, now a National Historic Landmark and working concert hall.
• National Museum of African American Music — steps away
  A downtown Nashville museum, opened in 2021, tracing gospel, blues, jazz, rhythm and blues and hip-hop through Black history from 1619 to 2016.
• Tennessee State Capitol — 0.3 mi
  William Strickland's Greek Revival capitol on Nashville's Capitol Hill, finished in 1859 and built from the bottom up with the labor of enslaved men.

More markers nearby

• First Masonic Hall — steps away
• Maxwell House Hotel — steps away
• Birth of Bluegrass — steps away
• War Memorial Auditorium Building — steps away