Ward- Belmont College

Adelicia Acklen, who built Belmont, became the wealthiest woman in Tennessee after her first husband, Isaac Franklin, died in 1846. Her inheritance included Fairvue Plantation, four Louisiana cotton plantations, more than 50,000 acres of Texas land and 750 enslaved people. She sold the Louisiana plantations in 1880, and in 1901 the state bought four of them, including Angola, for what became the Louisiana State Penitentiary. Acklen sold Belmont in 1887 and died that year in New York. The house later became a girls' school, then Ward-Belmont College, and now Belmont University.

What the plaque says

Ward- Belmont College In 1913, Belmont College (est. 1890) and Ward's Seminary (est. 1865) merged to form Ward-Belmont College, a women's junior college, preparatory school, and music conservatory on Adelicia Acklen's Belle Monte estate. It was the first junior college in the South to receive accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. It graduated some of America's most prominent women, including Sarah Cannon, better known as "Minnie Pearl;" Clare Booth Luce, founder of Vogue Magazine; and Lila Acheson Wallace, who with her husband founded Readers Digest. With this rich heritage, Belmont University continues in the educational lineage of Ward-Belmont College.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Negley — 1.3 mi
  The largest inland stone fort of the Civil War, built in 1862 on St. Cloud Hill by more than 2,700 conscripted Black laborers, hundreds of whom died.
• National Museum of African American Music — 2.0 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.
• Civil Rights Room at the Nashville Public Library — 2.0 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.
• Ryman Auditorium — 2.0 mi
  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.

More markers nearby

• William Edmondson Studio and Home Site — 0.3 mi
• Hillsboro Theatre — 0.4 mi
• Belcourt Theatre Est. 1925 — 0.4 mi
• Battle of Nashville: 21st Avenue South — 0.5 mi