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Old Hickory, Nashville — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Old Hickory is a neighbourhood on the Cumberland River east of downtown Nashville, built as DuPont's company town.
About Old Hickory
Where to stay in Old Hickory
Where you base yourself shapes the visit — here's the character of each area.
Old Hickory rewards travellers who want a river and a walkable centre. Rooms cluster near the Village of Old Hickory, the old company-town core where the historic DuPont bungalows and the neighbourhood's shops and cafes sit within a short stroll of one another along Old Hickory Boulevard. The Cumberland River is close.
Stay near the Village and the waterfront, the dam, and the wider streets of Nashville all fall within easy reach.
About Old Hickory
What are the main landmarks in Old Hickory?
Three landmarks fix Old Hickory on the map. Old Hickory Lock and Dam holds back the Cumberland River just north of the neighbourhood, the reservoir it forms spreads east as Old Hickory Lake, and The Hermitage, the plantation home of Andrew Jackson, stands a short drive away across Davidson County. The dam gives the district its edge.
Between the dam, the lake, and Jackson's estate, the area gathers a run of sights around water and early Nashville history.
What is the history of Old Hickory?
Old Hickory takes its name from Andrew Jackson, the president nicknamed Old Hickory, who once farmed the bend of the Cumberland River nearby. The neighbourhood as it stands grew in the early twentieth century, when DuPont raised a smokeless-powder plant on the site and laid out a company town of bungalows and manager's houses to shelter its workforce. The factory made the place.
Many of those homes survive in the Village of Old Hickory, a number of them listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the streets keep the ordered plan the plant's builders drew.
Where is Old Hickory?
Old Hickory fills the Hadley Bend of Davidson County, ringed by the Cumberland River and Old Hickory Lake east of Nashville.
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Updated July 2026