History alumnus keeps history real at Fort Negley

History alumnus keeps history real at Fort Negley

As director of Nashville's Fort Negley site, Tracy Harris brings the full arc of the Civil War to visitors in one location.

By Janel Shoun-Smith | 08/12/2026

Ironically enough, Tracy Harris (BA '10), the man charged with operating and enhancing Nashville's Fort Negley historic site, was not excited about the Civil War history class he had to take to finish up his Lipscomb degree.

"I thought it was the most boring of any history topic, because the battles all took place far away from where I was. None of the Civil War story seemed to get close to where I was." Harris said of his younger self, who grew up in Memphis. "Lo and behold, with Nashville and Lipscomb sitting on the very site where history took place, where we could tour the actual battlefields just around the corner (including Fort Negley), it became much more real and present."

And that is what Harris decided he wanted in his career: to be present in real historic sites.

A feeling of awe for historic settings was instilled in him from a young age, as he worked with his father, a custom cabinet builder, in many of the historic homes in Memphis. "It was fascinating to see how grand a 100-year-old home was. Even a modest bungalow had so much character," he said.

Then upon arriving at Lipscomb to delve into his major after two years at the University of Memphis, he abandoned his high school teaching trajectory. "I quickly decided that I was better suited for being in the spots where history took place," he said.

That Civil War class, taught by Tim Johnson, Elizabeth Gentry Brown Chair of History, opened his eyes to the fact that Nashvillians "in our daily lives are living in the places where consequential events happened," said Harris.

That is certainly true of Fort Negley, with a long and varied history dating back to 1862, when the Union Army used more than 2,700 conscript and volunteer laborers, predominately self-emancipating enslaved people and free Blacks who came to Nashville for a chance at freedom, to construct the fort atop St. Cloud Hill. During the Battle of Nashville in 1864, Fort Negley's artillery aided in pushing away from the city General Hood's Confederate forces.

What remains of the fort may be familiar to those Nashvillians who grew up seeing it on the way to the now demolished Nashville Sounds' Greer Stadium at 534 Chestnut Street and the Adventure Science Center at 800 Fort Negley Blvd.

The gates seen from the road were actually built as part of a 1935-1936 Works Progress Administration (WPA) project that restored the fort's stone walls and rebuilt the wooden stockade and casemates, located farther up the hill. With the rationing of materials in World War II impacting upkeep, the wooden portions were removed and the park closed in 1945. After sitting closed for six decades, the half-mile park trail and the four-acre stone fort re-opened as a city park in December 2004 with interpretive panels and accessible walkways.

Upon his graduation in 2010, Harris set his sights on working at the fort. For two summers, Harris worked as a summer seasonal employee at Fort Negley to get his foot in the door, and then worked part-time at The Parthenon, Nashville's historic replica of the Greek temple in Centennial Park.

In 2013, he earned a position in education and programming, and in 2023 he became the site's director, one of three staff who carry out educational programs and operate the on-site visitor center, built by the city in 2007.

From school field trips and meetings of the Nashville History Club to a city-held Juneteenth celebration that draws more than 10,000 people, from the annual remembrance day for the fort's laborers to an annual Underground Railroad lecture series, Harris works with volunteers and community groups to bring the living history of Fort Negley to the public.

Visitorship at Fort Negley has grown from 6,000 in 2008 to more than 32,000 in 2025, said Harris.

In 2017, Fort Negley came roaring back into the news, as the nonprofit Historic Nashville published its annual list of the nine most endangered historic sites in Nashville. That year they named Fort Negley to all nine spots, shining a spotlight on a proposed plan to develop the Greer Stadium site, which sat on Fort Negley park land, into a mixed-use complex.

That kicked off a community awareness campaign about Fort Negley's role in Nashville history. Besides having been built by conscripted free Black men and women, the U.S. colored troops who defended Fort Negley during the war settled one of Nashville's first post-emancipation Black neighborhoods at the base of the hill.

In 2019, Fort Negley was designated a UNESCO Site of Memory under its Slave Route Project, part of the first four such sites in the U.S., alongside Fort Mose in Florida, Freedman's Town Historic District in Texas and Middle Passage Port Markers along the Gulf and East Coast. In 2020, Fort Negley was added to the National Park Service's National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom.

Harris played an important role in discussing the history of the fort with neighbors, planners, and landscape architects during the campaign, bringing the insight of historical preservation experts to the discussion table, sharing with city planning officials what trends he has seen over the years and conveying what public interest, expectations and reactions are at the park on a daily basis, he said.

"Fort Negley is a fascinating spot," said Harris. "In one place you can see the entire arc of the Civil War-from African Americans longing for freedom, to being forced to work, to becoming soldiers, to settling neighborhoods around the fort. To create a more perfect union-that was happening in real time at Fort Negley, as messy as it was."
Public sentiment eventually resulted in the city developing a $40 million master plan, with the $11 million phase one expansion project officially kicked off in February. Phase one aims to transform the former Greer Stadium site into a memorial lawn and contemplative plaza seeded with native grasses, enhance the accessibility of walking paths and build a new overlook structure and new educational installations across the fort site. Expanded interpretation will highlight the site's history from Civil War to Civil Rights, said Harris. A larger parking lot and new entrance off of Chestnut Street will also be completed by summer 2027.

Later phases are expected to include restoring the 1930s driveways on Fort Negley Boulevard; adding trails on the north side of the hill; building out an interpretive plaza on Bass Street, the site of the post-Civil War African American neighborhood; and expanding the visitor center.

"[The public] really wanted to highlight the fort and the cultural landscape and make that the primary purpose of the park, as opposed to ball fields or other park facilities," Harris said of the community movement.