Wynnewood State Historic Site

The springs at Castalian Springs drew people long before there was an inn. A short distance from Wynnewood, on Lick Creek, stands one of four Mississippian mound centers on the eastern edge of the Nashville Basin, with mound building concentrated between about 1250 and 1350. The mounds belong to the State of Tennessee and are closed unless the Bledsoe's Lick Historical Association and the state archaeology division give permission, so what a visitor can see is the spring country itself. Isaac Bledsoe reached the lick in 1772, and Thomas Sharp Spencer spent the winter of 1778-79 in a hollow sycamore on the grounds.

The log inn went up in 1828, built by Alfred R. Wynne, Stephen Roberts and William Cage on land that belonged to Wynne's wife, Almira, a daughter of General James Winchester of nearby Cragfont. Wynne bought out his partners in 1834 and made it the family home, and for decades it also ran as a mineral springs resort. It is the largest surviving log structure in Tennessee and a National Historic Landmark.

Wynne was also a slave trader. A letter from his business partner has him going house to house in Richmond, Virginia, looking for people to buy and sell at Natchez, and census records suggest seven to fifteen enslaved people worked the property. A tornado hit the house in February 2008, and the logs were salvaged and the building put back together over about four years. Tours run on a seasonal schedule, so call ahead.