Vanderbilt University

The idea came from a Methodist bishop, Holland McTyeire, who lobbied the Methodist Episcopal Church, South to found a university in Nashville in 1872. Cornelius Vanderbilt gave an initial gift in 1873 that grew to a million dollars, and the trustees renamed the school for him. McTyeire became chairman of the board for life. The school opened to about 200 students in 1875. In 1914 the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that Vanderbilt, not the church, was the founder. Chancellor Branscomb arranged the admission of the first Black student, to the divinity school, in 1953.

What the plaque says

Vanderbilt University An independent, privately supported university founded 1873 by Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, New York shipping & railway magnate, who gave $1,000,000 to start the university & expressed his wish that it should "contribute to strengthening the ties which should exist between all geographical sections of our common country."

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fisk University and Jubilee Hall — 1.4 mi
  The 1866 school for freed people whose Jubilee Singers paid for Jubilee Hall, a National Historic Landmark, and whose students helped start Nashville's sit-ins.
• Civil Rights Room at the Nashville Public Library — 1.5 mi
  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.
• Tennessee State Capitol — 1.6 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.
• National Museum of African American Music — 1.6 mi
  A downtown Nashville museum, opened in 2021, tracing gospel, blues, jazz, rhythm and blues and hip-hop through Black history from 1619 to 2016.

More markers nearby

• Governor's Mansion — steps away
• Vanderbilt Memorial Gymnasium — 0.4 mi
• Anne Dallas Dudley — 0.4 mi
• John Robert Bradley — 0.6 mi