Nashville True Crime Tour: Our Darkest Locations (And the Ghost Stories Behind Them)
- Paul Whitten
- Jun 22
- 6 min read
Updated: 7 days ago
By Paul Whitten, Founder of Nashville Adventures
I’ve stood on the cobblestones of Printers Alley at 11 o’clock on a Tuesday night, holding a flashlight, watching a group of first-time Nashville visitors go completely silent. Not because I told them to. Because the history does that on its own.
Our Nashville true crime tour is built on exactly that feeling. Real events. Real names. Real places where the past left a mark that never quite faded. If you think you know Nashville from the honky-tonks and the Broadway bar crawl, these four locations are going to complicate that picture considerably.
Printers Alley: Bootleggers, Gamblers, and Blood on the Cobblestones
Walk down Printers Alley today, two narrow blocks running between Union and Commerce Streets, cobblestones still uneven underfoot, and you’re walking through one of downtown Nashville’s oldest entertainment districts. The name comes from the printing presses that lined its walls in the early 20th century. By the 1940s, that industry was long gone, and something considerably more dangerous had moved in.
During Prohibition, the Alley became Nashville’s hub for bootlegging, illegal liquor flowing to some of the city’s most powerful people. The speakeasies gave way to gambling dens. Violent altercations between rival operators filled the police blotters over the decades — robberies, beatings, multiple murders in a passage that barely sees sunlight. Organized crime pressure on club owners here continued well into the 1970s.
Stand there after dark and you start to understand the reports we get. Footsteps on the cobblestones when nobody’s there. Cold spots appearing out of nowhere. One of our guests said it plainly last fall: “Something touched my shoulder and when I turned around, there was no one there. I was completely alone in the Alley.”
I don’t tell them they imagined it.
The Hermitage Hotel: Suffrage, Sabotage, and Spectral Guests
Built in 1910, the Hermitage Hotel is Nashville’s most storied luxury property. The kind of place that pays attention to you, whether you notice it or not.
The most consequential moment in its history happened in August 1920. Tennessee was the last state needed to ratify the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote. Anti-suffrage forces — backed by liquor interests and conservative politicians — flooded the Hermitage to lobby, and bribe, Tennessee legislators. Suffragettes wore yellow roses; their opponents wore red. The hotel hallways became a battlefield of whispered deals and raw intimidation.
On August 18, 1920, a 24-year-old legislator named Harry T. Burn switched his vote after getting a letter from his mother that read, in part: “Don’t forget to be a good boy.” That single vote ratified the 19th Amendment. The letter was written right here, at the Hermitage.
Hotel staff and guests have long reported strange occurrences: doors swinging open with no one near them, muffled arguing from empty rooms, and the figure of an older gentleman in early-20th-century dress spotted on the mezzanine... disappearing before anyone gets close. I’ve had guests grab my arm on that landing. Whether it’s a former Prohibition-era lobbyist or something far older, I leave that judgment to the people who’ve seen it.
The Tennessee State Capitol: Built by Enslaved Hands, Haunted by Its Architect
The Tennessee State Capitol was completed in 1859 and has watched Nashville through war, attempted assassination, and 165 years of political upheaval. Two facts about this building stop guests cold every single time.
First: it was built largely by enslaved people and state prison convicts. The Greek Revival stonework that tourists photograph every day has a human cost that deserves to be spoken plainly, not buried in a footnote.
Second: the architect never left. William Strickland died in 1854, five years before his masterwork was finished. At his family’s request, with legislative blessing, his remains were entombed within the northeast corner wall of the building. His body is still there today.
I’ve heard some version of the same story from more than one Capitol worker over the years.
“I’ve worked in this building for eleven years. I don’t believe in ghosts. But I also don’t stay past dark alone on the legislative floor.” -Anonymous Capitol staffer
Security guards report unexplained footsteps in empty chambers at night. Visitors on Nashville dark history tours have spotted a figure in Victorian dress near the northeast wall — watching, as if still checking the work.
And there’s one more layer. In 1835, would-be assassin Richard Lawrence fired two pistols at President Andrew Jackson on these very steps. Both misfired. Jackson — then 67 — beat him with his cane until bystanders pulled him off. The ghost of that confrontation, some say, hasn’t cleared the hill.
The Ryman Auditorium: The Captain Who Never Left the Stage
Tom Ryman made his money running whiskey barges up and down the Cumberland River in the 1880s. Hard-drinking, hard-dealing... not exactly the profile for a dramatic conversion. In 1885, he attended a Sam Jones revival meeting with every intention of heckling it. He left a changed man and pledged to build something worthy of the experience.
The result was the Union Gospel Tabernacle in 1892, later renamed the Ryman Auditorium. Ryman died in 1904, years before it became the Grand Ole Opry’s home. The building became Nashville’s most beloved stage — and, by most accounts, its most reliably haunted.
Hank Williams Sr. made the Ryman his spiritual home before his death in the early hours of January 1, 1953. He was 29 years old. Stagehands have reported hearing guitar strings being plucked in empty backstage dressing rooms for decades. I’ve talked to performers over the years who describe the same thing: a presence in the wings, watching. Too specific and too consistent across too many different people to brush aside.
“I’m a skeptic. I went on the tour because my girlfriend asked me to. Then we were standing backstage at the Ryman and I heard what sounded like a single guitar string being plucked — just once — from somewhere behind me. There was nobody there. I haven’t been able to shake it.” — Nashville Adventures guest, 2025
Some believe Captain Ryman himself still walks the building, still protecting the space he gave everything to create. For our Nashville true crime tour, there’s no better ending than a story like that — a sinner turned saint who may never have found the peace he was looking for.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Nashville haunted?
By most accounts, yes. Nashville’s layered history... the Civil War, Prohibition-era crime, political upheaval, and centuries of hard living- has left its marks in more places than most visitors expect. Whether you’re a believer or a skeptic, Nashville’s dark history is real, and the places that carry it are worth standing in. Visit Music City covers dozens of historic downtown sites, but the stories they don’t put on the brochure are the ones I find most interesting.
What true crime happened in Nashville?
Nashville’s true crime history spans centuries. Prohibition-era bootlegging and gambling violence played out in Printers Alley. Documented corruption and intimidation surrounded the Women’s Suffrage ratification battle at the Hermitage Hotel in 1920. An assassination attempt on President Andrew Jackson unfolded on the Tennessee State Capitol steps in 1835 — two guns, two misfires, one very angry president with a cane. Nashville’s music industry carries its own darkness, including the tragic early deaths of Hank Williams Sr. and other Opry legends.
What is a Nashville true crime tour?
A Nashville true crime tour connects you to the real history beneath the city’s polished surface — the names, the events, the places that shaped Nashville’s character. Our guests consistently tell us it’s the most memorable and surprising experience of their Nashville visit. You walk away knowing the city at a level that no bar crawl or stadium concert can give you.
See These Locations Before the Stories Disappear
These aren’t legends dressed up for tourists. These are real places with real histories that happened to real people. On a Nashville Adventures ghost tour, we take you to all four of these locations — and a few others we save for the walk itself, because some stories land better when you’re standing in the dark with the streetlights buzzing overhead.
Come walk with us. Out here, the history does the haunting all by itself.
