1. Nashville I-24 Campground
City: Smyrna, TN
Category: Accommodations
Telephone: (615) 459-5818
Address: 1130 Rocky Fork Rd.
Description: This wooded campground, open since 1971, is affiliated with the Good Sam family of campgrounds. It has 155 sites for tent camping and recreational vehicles plus 4 cabins. Amenities include a swimming pool, a grocery store, a game room, and 2 playgrounds. Prices are $21 for tent camping, $23 for full hookups, $30 for single-room cabins, and $48 a night for a cabin with kitchenette and bathroom. Discounts are available for Good Sam members.
2. Heritage Days
City: Smyrna, TN
Category: Annual Events & Festivals
Telephone: (615) 459-2341, (888) 750-9524
Address: 1399 Sam Davis Rd.
Description: This event is a living-history celebration featuring such activities as lye soap making, blacksmithing, quilting, and food preserving. It’s held on the Thurs and Fri closest to October 6 at the Sam Davis Home. Admission is $5 for everyone ages 3 and up. Smyrna is 20 miles southeast of Nashville. The Sam Davis Home is off I-24 E.
3. Smyrna Municipal Golf Course
City: Smyrna, TN
Category: Golf
Telephone: (615) 459-2666
Address: 101 Sam Ridley Pkwy.
Description: This 6,028-yard, par 72 course is fairly flat with just a few water hazards. Fees are $36, $39 weekends. Smyrna Municipal has a snack bar and pro shop. Smyrna Municipal Golf Course also has a 9-hole executive course. The 1,507-yard, par 29 course is part of the nationwide First Tee junior golf program. Fees on the 9-hole executive course are $15 with cart; $13 with a cart for seniors 55 and older and juniors 17 and under.
4. Stonecrest Medical Center
City: Smyrna, TN
Category: Health Care
Telephone: (615) 768-2000
Address: 200 StoneCrest Blvd.
Description: StoneCrest Medical Center opened in November 2003 as a replacement for the 60-bed Southern Hills Medical Center at Smyrna emergency department. Part of the HCA-owned TriStar Health System, the $75-million facility, located at the intersection of I-24 and Sam Ridley Parkway in the heart of Smyrna and La Vergne, has 75 beds, with room for 150. There are more than 130 physicians on staff. Among the full array of acute-care services offered are emergency care, general surgery, cardiology, obstetrics and other women’s services, cancer care, and intensive care. A 160,000-square-foot physicians’ building is adjacent to the hospital.
5. Fate Sanders Marina
City: Smyrna, TN
Category: Parks & Recreation
Telephone: (615) 459-6219
Address: 3157 Weakley Lane
Description: In addition to a launching ramp and fishing supplies, Fate Sanders also offers a restaurant that serves catfish daily.
6. Sam Davis Home Historic Site
City: Smyrna, TN
Category: Tours & Attractions
Telephone: (615) 459-2341
Address: 1399 Sam Davis Rd.
Description: This Greek Revival home, built around 1820 and enlarged around 1850, sits on 169 acres of the original 1,000-acre farm that was the home of Sam Davis. Davis, called the “Boy Hero of the Confederacy,” enlisted in the Confederate army at the age of 19. He served as a courier, and while transporting secret papers to Gen. Braxton Bragg in Chattanooga, he was captured by Union forces, tried as a spy, and sentenced to hang. The trial officer was so impressed with Davis’s honesty and sense of honor that he offered him freedom if he would reveal the source of military information he was caught carrying. Davis is reported to have responded, “If I had a thousand lives I would give them all gladly rather than betray a friend.” He was hanged in Pulaski, Tennessee, on November 27, 1863. The home is a typical upper-middle-class farmhouse of the period. A tour of the property also includes outbuildings. Heritage Days takes place here every Oct. The home is open daily.